




















- 




































INDEX. 



IP . 
59. 

IP . 

>9, 

1 "76. 

77, 

l 1 . 
1 
i 
13. 
4. 
. 
1 

'). 
10, 
■L. 



Edward Everett. 
John . . Latrobi . 
Whn . B, Latrobs, 

■ ■ ■ . Roberts. 
. Irenae 13 Pri 

. Samson, 
. Grammar. 
Edward P. Humphrey. 
John H. B. I 
Alexander T. McGili. 
Willi f, Allen. 
If, A. De" 

matron , 

• Washi arren, 

•shall, 

&•< • . a, 

in L. Y/ithr* . 
w m. Fanr 

Wrr. : . ffiefcolson, 
Bds . • : 

otib h. riffaj , 
mderland, 
. Aspinwall Hod 
. Luther, 
Edward W. Blyden, 
ton Parks. 






ADDRESS 



OP THE 



HON. EDWARD EVMETTj 






ktxttm of State, 



DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON 



J-, AT TDE ANMVER8ABI II 'THE UIERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



JAN. L8, L853. 



I 
I 



i- 



HARTFORD: 
PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY. 



l«* % 

*< 



From 
Aaerican Colonization Society 
May 28, 1913. 



•>"& 



ADDRESS 



HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



Mr. President and (tent, of the Col. Society: 

It was my intention when I was requested some weeks 
ago, totakr ;i part in the proceedings of this evening, to give 
the subject of the Colonization Society and its operations on 
the coast of Africa, the* mqst* thorough examination in my 
power, in nil its bearings, considering th^£, whether we look 
to the condition of this country or the interests of Africa, no 
more important object could engage our attention. But dur- 
ing almost tin- whole of the interval that has since elapsed, 
my time and my thoughts have been so entirely taken up 
and preoccupied, thai it has been altogether out of my power 
to give more than the hastiest preparation to the part which 
I am to take in this evening's proceedings. I am therefore 
obliged to throw myself upon the indulgence of this audi- 
ence, with such a hasty view of the subject, as I have been 
alone able to take. 

The Colonization Society seems to me to have been the 
subject of much unmerited odium, of much equally unmerit- 
ed indifference on the part of the great mass of the commu- 
nity, and to have received that attention which it so well 
Voi 11 I mt very few. We regard it now only in its 
infancy. All that we see in this country is the quiet opera- 
tion of a private association, pursuing the even tenor of its 
way without ostentation, without eclat; and on the coast of 
Africa there is nothing to attract our attention but a small 
I 



settlement, the germ of a Republic, which, however prosper- 
ous, is but still in its infancy. 

But before we deride even these small beginnings — before 
we make up our minds that the most important futurities are 
not wrapped up in them, even as the spreading oak is wrap- 
ped up in the small acorn which we can hold in our fingers, 
we should do well to recollect the first twenty-five or thirty 
years of the settlement at Jamestown, in your State, Mr. 
President, the parent of Virginia. We should do well to 
remember the history of that dreadful winter at Plymouth, 
when more than half the Mayflower's little company were 
laid beneath the sod, and that sod smoothed over for fear the 
native savage would come and count the number of the 
graves. I think if you look to what has been done in Libe- 
ria in the last quarter of a century, you will find that it com- 
pares favorably with the most and the best that was done in 
Virginia or in Plymouth, during the same period. These 
seem to me to be reasons why we should not look with 
too much distrust ,at the small beginnings that have been 
made. 

Gentlemen, the foundation of this Society was laid in a 
great political and moral necessity. The measures which 
were taken for the suppression of the slave trade, naturally 
led to the capture of slave ships, and the question immedi- 
ately arose what should be done with the victims that were 
rescued from them. It was necessary that they should be 
returned to Africa. They could not, each and all, be sent to 
their native villages. They had been collected from the 
whole interior of that country, many of them two thousand 
miles in the interior, and it was out of the question that they 
should immediately be sent to their homes. If they had been 
placed upon the coast, in a body, at any of the usual points 
of resort, the result would have been to throw them at once 
back again into the grasp of the native chiefs who are the 
principal agents of the slave trade. It was, therefore, abso- 
lutely necessary, if the course of measures undertaken for the 
suppression of the slave trade was to be pursued, that some 
Colony should be founded, under the name and influence and 



patronage of ;i powerful European or American State, where 
these poor victims should be placed at once, safely protected, 
supplied with necessary provisions of all kinds, civilized if 
possible, and by degrees enabled to find their way back to 
their native villages, which sonic of them no doubt, both from 
the English and American Colony have from time to time 
done; as we know in fad thai they have. 

This, as I understand it. was one of the first ideas that gave 
origin to this Society, and as I said before, it was apolitical 
and moral necessity. Then came the kindred object, which 
was more important, because applicable to a much larger 
number of persons, pf providing a suitable home for that 
portion of the colored population of this country that were 
desirous of emigrating to the land of their fathers. This at 
first, ae I understand it. for it was before my day, was an ob- 
ject thai approved itself almosl universally throughout the 
country, to the South as well as to the North* to the white as 
well as to the colored population. Every body seemed to 
think at hrsl thai this was a practicable, desirable and most 
praiseworthy object l!> degrees, I am sorry to say, jealou- 
Bies crept in; prejudices, for so I must account them, arose; 
and in process of time, it has come to pass that this Society 
has become, I mu-t Bay, intensely unpopular with a large 
das- of the colored population whose interests and welfare 
were some of the prime objects of its foundation. 

1 will not undertake on this occasion to discuss the foun- 
dation of these prejudices. I will not dwell upon those, as 
they arc called, oppressive laws, and that still more oppres- 
sive public sentiment in all parts of the country, which render 
the condition of the colored population in every part of the 
Union, one of disability, discouragement and hardship. In 
order to meet the objection to the operation of the Society 
which arises from the statement that it tends to cooperate 
with, and to strengthen these oppressive laws and this op- 
pressive public sentiment. 1 will for argument's sake, take it 
for granted that this legislation and this sentiment are cor- 
rectly thus characterized ; that they are as oppressive, cruel 
and tyrannical as they are declared to be. 



Taking this for granted, I ask in the name of common 
sense, in the name of humanity, does this state of things fur- 
nish any reason why the free colored population of the coun- 
try, should be discouraged from leaving a state of things like 
this, and going to the land of their fathers, a continent of their 
own, where no such legislation, where no such unfriendly pub- 
lic sentiment would exist ; a great and fertile land, a land that 
is inviting them to come and take possession of it, and in 
various parts of which there is everything that can attract 
and reward the industry of man ? It seems to me that the 
objection which is urged to the Society, that it cooperates 
with that oppressive state of things here, furnishes the very 
strongest reason in favor of the emigration. Let us take a 
parallel case. Suppose any one had gone among that little 
company of persecuted Christians in England, in the year 
1608, who afterward became the Pilgrim church of Mr. Rob- 
inson at Leyden; or suppose any one had gone in 1630 to 
the more important company of Gov. Winthrop, the great 
founder of Massachusetts ; had tried to excite their feelings 
against the projected emigration ; had told them that En- 
gland belonged to them as much as it did to their oppressors ; 
had led them to stand upon their rights, and if necessary bleed 
and die for them ; had depicted the hardships and sufferings 
of the passage; had painted in the darkest colors, the terrors 
of the wilderness into which they were about to venture: 
would that have been true friendship, would it have been 
kindness, would it have been humanity ? Or to come nearer 
home, suppose at the present day one should go into Ireland, 
or France, or Switzerland, or Germany, or Norway, or any 
of the countries from which hundreds of thousands of men, 
in a depressed, destitute and unhappy condition, are emigra- 
ting to the United States, to find a refuge, a home, a social 
position, and employment; suppose some one should go to 
them and try to stimulate a morbid patriotism, a bitter na- 
tionality, telling them the country where they were born, be- 
longed as much to them as to the more favored classes, indu- 
cing them to stay where they were born, telling them that it 
was doubtful whether they would get employment in the 



new country, talking of the expenses, the diseases, the hard- 
ships of the poor emigrant, and in this way endeavor to deter 
them from this great adventure, which is to end in procuring 
a home and a position in the world, and an education for 
themselves and their children : would this be friendship, would 
this he kindness, would this be humanity? But these are 
the appeals which are made to the free colored population of 
this country, and ii is by appeals like this that the Society 
and the colony have become, as I am sorry to say I believe 
is the case, highly unpopular among them. 

Hut I must hasten on from I his object of providing a home 
for the free colored population who wish to emigrate, to 
another which was a very considerable and leading object with 
the founders of this Society, and that is the suppression of 
the foreign -lave trade. It is grievous to reflect, it is one of 
the darkesl things that we read of in history, that contempo- 
raneously with the discovery o( this continent, and mainly 
from mistaken humanity toward the natives, the whole 
t)\' Africa was thrown open to that desolating 
traffic, which from time immemorial, had been carried on 
from the porta of the Mediterranean, the Nile, and the Red 
-ml the -lions of Eastern Africa. It is still more pain- 
ful to relict thai it was precisely a1 the period whenthe best 
culture of modern Europe was moving rapidly toward its 
perfection, thai the Intercourse of Africa with Em-ope, in- 
stead of proving a blessing proved a curse. Have you well 
considered, Mr. President, that it was in the days of Shaks- 
peare, and Spenser, andHboker, and Bacon, and other bright 
Buna in the nrmamenl of the glory of England, that her navi- 
gatora firsl began to go forth, and as if in derision, in vessels 
bearing the venerable names of "the Solomon" and "the 
Jesus," to the coast of Africa, to tear away its wretched na- 
tivea into a state of bondage. It was at the very time when 
in England and France, the last vestiges|pf the feudal system 
were breaking down ; when private war was put an end to, 
and men began to venture out from the walled towns and 
dwell in safety in the open country, and to traverse the high 
roada without fear; it was then that these most polished na- 



tions began to enter into competition with each other, whicl 
should monopolize that cruel traffic, the African slave trade 
the principal agency of which was to stir up a system of uni 
versal hostility ; not merely between nation and nation, bu 
between tribe and tribe, clan and clan, family and family 
and often between members of the same household ; for, . 
am sorry to say, it is no unprecedented thing for these poo 
creatures to sell their wives and children to the slave trader 
In this way the whole western coast of Africa became lik< 
the northern and eastern coast before, one general mart fo 
the slave trade. This lasted for three hundred years. A 
length the public sentiment of the world, in Europe and Amer 
ica, was awakened. Several of the colonial assemblies in this 
country passed acts inhibiting the slave trade, but they wen 
uniformly negatived by the crown. The Continental Con 
gress in 1776, denounced the traffic. The federal conventioi 
in 1789 fixed a prospective period for its abolition in thi< 
country. The example was followed by the states of Eu 
rope. At the present day, every Christian and several of thi 
Mohammedan powers have forbidden it; yet it is extensively 
carried on, and some authorities say that the number of slave 
taken from Africa has not seriously diminished ; but I hop< 
this is not true. This state of facts has led several person 
most desirous of putting an end to the traffic, to devise soirn 
new system, some new agency ; and all agree — there is not i 
dissenting voice on that point — that the most effectual, am 
in fact the only substitute is the establishment of colonies 
Wherever a colony is established on the coast of Africa un 
der the direction of a Christian power in Europe or America 
there the slave trade disappears; not merely from the coas 
of the colony, but from the whole interior of the countr; 
which found an outlet at any point on that coast. In thi 
way, from the most northern extremity of the French an< 
English colonies down to the most southern limit of thi 
American settlements, the slave trade has entirely disap 
peared. The last slave mart in thatregion, the Gallinas, ha 
within a short time, I believe, come within the jurisdictioi 
of the American colony of Liberia. Now, along that wholi 



line of coast and throughout the whole interior connected 
with it, a line of coast, as I believe, not less than that from 
Maine to Georgia — from every port and every harbor of which 
the foreign slave trade was carried on — within the memory 
of man, it has entirely disappeared. What congresses of 
sovereigns at Vienna, and Aix-la-Chapelle, could not do; 
what squadrons of war steamers cruising along the coast 
could not achieve ; what quintuple treaties among the pow- 
ers of Europe could not effect by the arts of diplomacy, has 
been done by these poor little colonies, one of which at least, 
that of Liberia, has, in latter times, been almost without the 
recognition of this government, struggling into permanence 
by the resources furnished by private benevolence. (Ap- 
plause.) I ask what earthly object of this kind more meri- 
torious than this can be named ? And what career is there 
opened to any colored man in Europe or America, more 
praiseworthy, more inviting than this, to form as it were, in 
his own person, a portion of that living cordon, stretching 
along the coast and barring its whole extent from the ap- 
proaches of this traffic ? ( Applause.) 

But even the suppression of the slave trade, all important 
as it is, is but auxiliary to another ulterior object of still more 
commanding importance, and that is the civilization of Af- 
rica. The condition of Africa is a disgrace to the rest of the 
civilized world. With an extent nearly three times as great 
as that of Europe ; its known portions of great fertility, teem- 
ing with animal and vegetable life ; traversed by magnificent 
chains of mountains, east and west, north and south, 
whose slopes send down the tributaries of some of the no- 
blest rivers in the world ; connecting on the north by the 
Mediterranean, with the ancient and modern culture of Eu- 
rope ; projecting on the west far into the Atlantic Ocean, that 
great highway of the world's civilization ; running on the 
south-east into a near proximity to our own South American 
continent ; open on the east to the trade of India and on the 
north-east, by the Red Sea and the Nile, locked closely 
into the Asiatic continent: one would have thought that with 
all these natural endowments, with this noble geographical 



8 

position, Africa was destined to be the emporium, the gar- 
den of the globe. Man alone in this unhappy continent has 
dropped so far into arrears in the great march of humanity, 
behind the other portions of the human family, that the ques- 
tion has at length been started whether he does not labor under 
some incurable, natural inferiority. In this, for myself, I have 
no belief whatever. 

I do not deny that among the numerous races in the Af- 
rican continent, as among the numerous races in all the other 
continents, there are great diversities, from the politic and 
warlike tribes upon the central plateau, to the broken down 
hordes on the slave coast, and on the banks of the Congo, 
and the squalid, half human Hottentot. But do you think 
the difference is any greater between them than it is between 
the Laplander, the Gipsy, the Calmuc, and the proudest and 
brightest specimens of humanity in Europe or America? I 
think not. 

What then can be the cause of the continued unciviliza- 
tion of Africa ? Without attempting presumptuously to pry 
into the mysteries of Providence, I think that adequate causes 
can be found in some historical and geographical circum- 
stances. It seems a law of human progress, which however 
difficult to explain, is too well sustained by facts to be doubt- 
ed, that in the first advances out of barbarism into civiliza- 
tion, the first impulses and guidances must come from abroad. 
This of course, leaves untouched the great mystery who could 
have made a beginning; but still, as far back as history or 
tradition runs, we do find that the first guidance and impulse 
came from abroad. From Egypt and Syria the germs of 
improvement were brought to Greece, from Greece to Rome, 
from Rome to the north and west of Europe, from Europe 
to America, and they are now spreading on from us to the 
farthest West, until at length it shall meet the East again. 
To what extent the aboriginal element shall be borne down 
and overpowered by the foreign iniluences, or enter into kind- 
ly combinations with them, depends upon the moral and in- 
tellectual development of both parties. There may be such 
aptitude for improvement, or the disparity between the native 



and foreign race may be so small, that a kindly combination 
will at once take place. This is supposed to have been the case 
with the ancient Grecian tribes in reference to the emigrants 
from Egypt and the East. .Or the inaptitude may be so great, 
and the disparity between the natives and the foreigners may 
be so wide, that no such kindly union can take place. This is 
commonly supposed to be the case with the natives of our 
own continent, who are slowly and silently retiring before the 
inroads of a foreign influence. 

Now, in reference to this law of social progress, there have 
been in Africa two most unfortunate difficulties. In the first 
place, all the other branches of the human family that have 
had the start of Africa in civilization, have, from the very 
dawn of history, been concerned in the slave trade ; so that 
intercourse with foreigners, instead of being a source of mu- 
tual improvement to both parties, particularly to the weaker, 
has, in the case of Africa, only tended to sink them deeper 
into barbarism and degeneracy of every kind. This has been 
one difficulty. Another is the climate — this vast equatorial 
expanse — this aggregate of land between the tropics, greater 
than all the other parts of the globe together — her fervid ver- 
tical sun, burning down upon the rank vegetation of her fer- 
tile plains, and rendering her shores and water courses pes- 
tiferous to a foreign constitution. This circumstance also 
seems to shut Africa out from the approaches of civilization 
through the usual channels. The ordinary inducements of 
gain, are too weak to tempt the merchant to those feverous 
shores. Nothing but a taste for adventure, approaching to 
mania, attracts the traveler; and when Christian benevo- 
lence allures the devoted missionary to this field of labor, it 
lures him too often to his doom. 

By this combination of influences, Africa seems to have 
been shut out, from the beginning, from a-ll those benefits that 
otherwise result from foreign intercourse. But now, mark 
and reverence the Providence of God, educing out of these 
disadvantages of climate, (disadvantages as we consider 
them,) and out of this colossal, moral wrong— the foreign slave 
trade—educing out of these seemingly hopeless elements 



10 

of physical and moral evil, after long cycles of crime and suf- 
fering, of violence and retribution, such as history no where 
else can parallel — educing, I say, from these almost hopeless 
elements, by the blessed alchemy, of Christian love, the ulti- 
mate means of the regeneration of Africa. (Applause.) 

The conscience of the Christian world at last was roused ; 
an end it was determined should be put to the foreign slave 
trade ; but not till it had conveyed six millions of the children 
and descendants of Africa to the Western Hemisphere, of 
whom about one and a half millions have passed into a state 
of freedom ; though born and educated, no doubt, under cir- 
cumstances unfavorable for moral or intellectual progress, 
sharing in the main, the blessings and the lights of our com- 
mon Christian civilization, and proving themselves, in the 
example of the Liberian colony, amply qualified to be the 
medium of conveying these blessings to the land of their 
fathers. 

Thus, you see at the very moment when the work is ready 
to commence, the instruments are prepared. Do I err in sup- 
posing that the same august Providence which has arrang- 
ed, or has permitted the mysterious sequence of events to 
which I have referred, has also called out, and is inviting 
those chosen agents to enter upon the work ? Everything 
else has been tried and failed. Commercial adventure on the 
part of individuals has been unsuccessful ; strength, courage, 
endurance, almost superhuman, have failed ; well appointed 
expeditions, fitted out under the auspices of powerful associ- 
ations and powerful governments, have ended in the most 
calamitous failure ; and it has been proved at last, by all this 
experience, that the white race of itself, can not civilize Africa. 

Sir, when that most noble expedition, I think in 1841, was 
fitted out, under the highest auspices in England, to found an 
agricultural colony at the confluence of the Niger and the 
Chad, out of one hundred and fifty white persons that formed 
a part of it, every man sickened, and all but three or four died. 
On the other hand, out of one hundred and fifty colored 
men, that formed part of the expedition, only three or four 
sickened, and they were men who had passed some years in 



11 

the West Indies, and in Europe, and not one died. I think 
that fact, in reference to the civilization of Africa is worth, I 
had almost said, all the treasure, and all the suffering of that 
ill-fated expedition. 

Sir, you can not civilize Africa — you Caucasian — you 
proud white man — you all-boasting, all-daring Anglo-Saxon, 
you can not do this work. You have subjugated Europe ; 
the native races of this country are melting before you as 
the untimely snows of April beneath a vernal sun; you have 
possessed yourself of India; you threaten China and Japan; 
the farthest isles of the Pacific are not distant enough to es- 
cape your grasp, or insignificant enough to elude your notice : 
but this great Central Africa lies at your doors and defies 
your power. Your war steamers and your squadrons may 
range along the coast, but neither on the errands of peace, 
nor on the errands of war, can you penetrate into and long 
keep the interior. The God of nature, for purposes inscruta- 
ble, but no doubt to be reconciled with His wisdom and good- 
ness, has drawn a cordon across the chief inlets, that you can 
not pass. You may hover on the coast, but woe to you if 
you attempt to make a permanent lodgment in the interior. 
Their poor mud-built villages will oppose no resistance to 
your arms; but death sits portress at their undefended gates. 
Yellow fevers, and blue plagues, and intermittent poisons, 
that you can see as well as feel, hover in the air. If you 
attempt to go up the rivers, pestilence shoots from the man- 
groves, that fringe their noble banks ; and the all-glorious sun 
that kindles everything else into life and power, darts down 
disease and death into your languid frame. No, no, Anglo- 
Saxon, this is no part of your vocation. You may direct the 
way, you may survey the coast, you may point your finger 
into the interior ; but you must leave it to others to go and 
abide there. The God of nature, in another branch of his 
family, has chosen out the instruments of this great work — 
the descendants of the torrid clime, children of the burning 
vertical sun — and fitted them by centuries of stern discipline 
for this most noble work — 



12 

From foreign realms and land remote, 

Supported by His care, 
They pass unharmed through burning climes, 

And breathe the tainted air. 

Sir, I believe that Africa will be civilized, and civilized by 
the descendants of those who were torn from the land. I be- 
lieve it because I will not think that this great fertile con- 
tinent is to be forever left waste. I believe it because I see no 
other agency fully competent to the work. I believe it be- 
cause I see in this agency a most wonderful adaptation. 

But doubts are entertained of the practicability of effecting 
this object by the instrumentality that I have indicated. They 
are founded in the first place, on the supposed incapacity of 
the free colored population of this country and the West 
Indies to take up and carry on such a work ; and also on the 
supposed degradation and, if I may use such a word, unim- 
provability of the native African races, which is presumed to 
be so great as to bid defiance to any such operation. 

Now, I think it would be very unjust to the colored popu- 
lation of this country and the West Indies, to argue from 
what they have done under present circumstances, to what 
they might effect under the most favorable circumstances. I 
think, upon the whole, all things considered, that they have 
done quite as well as could be expected ; that they have done 
as well as persons of European or Anglo-American origin 
would have done after three centuries of similar depression 
and hardship. You will recollect, sir, that Mr. Jefferson, in his 
valuable work, called " The Notes on Virginia," states in strong 
language the intellectual inferiority of the colored race. I 
have always thought that it ought to have led Mr. Jefferson 
to hesitate a little as to the accuracy of this opinion, when 
he recollected that in the very same work he was obliged to 
defend the Anglo-American race, to which he himself, and 
to which so many of us belong, against the very same im- 
putation, brought by an ingenious French writer, the Abbe" 
Raynal, whose opinions were shared by all the school of 
philosophers to which he belonged. Why, it is not but a very 
few years — I do not know that the time has now ceased — 



13 

when we Anglo-Americans were spoken of by our brethren 
beyond the water, as a poor, degenerate, almost semi-barba- 
rous race. In the liberal journals of England, within thirty 
years, the question has been contemptuously asked, in refer- 
ence to the native country of Franklin, and Washington, and 
Adams, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Marshall ; of Irving, 
Prescott, Bancroft, Ticknor, Bryant, and Cooper, Longfellow, 
and Hawthorne, and hosts of others : " Who reads an Ameri- 
can book ?" It seems to me, in view of facts like this, we 
ought to be a little cautious how we leap to the conclusion 
that the free colored African race is necessarily in a condi- 
tion of hopeless inferiority. 

Then in reference to the other difficulty about the unim- 
provability of the African. It is said that the Africans alone 
of all the branches of the human family have never been able 
to rise out of barbarism. Sir, I do not know that ; I do not 
think that anybody knows it. An impenetrable cloud hangs 
over the early history of mankind in every part of the globe. 
We well know in reference to the whole North and West of 
Europe, and a great part of the South of Europe, that it was 
utterly barbarous until the light of the Roman civilization 
shone in upon it, and in comparatively recent times. We 
also know that in very early times one of the native African 
races, I mean the Egyptians, attained a high degree of cul- 
ture. They were the parents of all the arts of Greece, and 
through them of the ancient world. The Egyptians were a 
colored race. They did not belong to the negro type; but 
still they were purely a colored race, and if we should judge 
of their present condition, as unimprovable as any of the 
tribes of Central Africa. Yet we find upon the banks of the 
Nile, the massive monuments of their cheerless culture that 
have braved the storms of time more successfully than the 
more graceful structures of Rome and of Greece. 

It is true that some nations who have emerged from 
barbarism at a later period, have attained the precedence 
over Africa, and have kept it to the present day; but I am 
not willing to believe that this arises from causes so fixed 
and permanent in their nature, that no reversal, at no length 



14 

of time, is to be hoped from their operation. We are led into 
error by contemplating things too much in the gross. There 
are tribes in Africa which have made no contemptible prog- 
ress in various branches of human improvement. On the 
other hand, if we look at the population of Europe — if we 
cast our eyes from Lisbon to Archangel, from the Hebrides 
to the Black Sea — if for a moment we turn our thoughts 
from the few who are born to wealth, and its consequent ad- 
vantages, culture, education, and that lordship over the for- 
ces of nature which belongs to cultivated mind — if we turn 
from these to the benighted, oppressed, destitute, supersti- 
tious, ignorant, suffering millions, who pass their lives in the 
hopeless toil of the field, the factory and the mine ; whose in- 
heritance from generation to generation is beggary ; whose 
education from sire to son is stolid ignorance ; at whose daily 
table hunger and thirst are the stewards ; whose occasional 
festivity is brutal intemperance — if we could count their num- 
bers — if we could sum up together in one frightful mass, all 
their destitution of the comforts and blessings of life, and 
thus form an estimate of the practical barbarism of the nom- 
inally civilized portions of the world, we should, I think, come 
to the conclusion that this supposed in-bred essential superi- 
ority of the European races does not really exist. 

If there be any such essential superiority, why has it been 
so late in showing itself? It is said that the Africans have 
persisted in their barbarism for four or five thousand years. 
Europe persisted in her barbarism for three or four thousand 
years, and in the great chronology of Divine Providence, we 
are taught that a thousand years are but as one day. Sir, 
it is only ten centuries since the Anglo-Saxons, to whose race 
we are so fond of claiming kindred, were as barbarous and 
uncivilized as many of the African tribes. They were a sav- 
age, ferocious, warlike people ; pirates at sea, bandits on shore ; 
slaves of the most detestable superstitions ; worshiping idols 
as cruel and ferocious as themselves. And as to the foreign 
slave trade, it is but eight centuries, and perhaps less, since 
there was as much slave trade in proportion, upon the coast 
of Great Britain as in the Bight of Benin at the present day. 



15 

The natives of England eight centuries ago, were bought 
and sent to the slave marts, in the south and west of Eu- 
rope. At length the light of Christianity shone in ; refine- 
ment, civilization, letters, arts, and by degrees all the delights, 
all the improvements of life followed in their train, and now 
we talk with the utmost self-complacency of the essential 
superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, and look down with 
disdain upon those portions of the human family, who have 
lagged a little behind us in the march of civilization. 

Africa at the present day is not in that state of utter bar- 
barism, which popular opinion ascribes to it. Here again, 
we do not sufficiently discriminate. We judge in the gross. 
Certainly there are tribes wholly broken down by internal 
wars, and the detestable foreign slave trade ; but this is not 
the character of the entire population. They are not sava- 
ges. Most of them live by agriculture. There is some traffic 
between the coast and the interior. Many of the tribes have 
a respectable architecture, though of a rude kind, but still im- 
plying some progress of the arts. Gold dust is collected ; iron 
is smelted and wrought ; weapons and utensils of husbandry 
and household use are fabricated ; cloth is woven and dyed ; 
palm oil is expressed ; there are schools ; and among the Mo- 
hammedan tribes the Koran is read. You, Mr. President, well 
remember that twenty-one years ago, you and I saw in one 
of the committee rooms of yonder Capitol, a native African, 
w T ho had been forty years a field slave in the West Indies 
and in this country, and wrote at the age of seventy the Ara- 
bic character, with the fluency and the elegance of a scribe. 
Why, sir, to give the last test of civilization, Mungo Park 
tells us in his journal that in the interior of Africa lawsuits 
are argued with as much ability, as much fluency, and at as 
much length as in Edinburgh. (Laughter and applause.) 

Sir, I do not wish to run into paradox on this subject. I 
am aware that the condition of the most advanced tribes of 
Central Africa is wretched, mainly, in consequence of the 
slave trade. The only wonder is, that with this cancer eating 
into their vitals from age to age, any degree of civilization 
whatever can exist. But degraded as the ninety millions of 



16 

Africans are. I presume you mi^ht find in the aggregate, on 
the continent of Europe, another ninety millions as degra- 
ded, to which each country in that quarter of the globe would 
contribute its quota. The difference is. and it is certainly 
an all-important difference, that in Europe, intermingled with 
these ninety millions, are fifteen or twenty minions possess- 
ed of all degrees of culture up to the very highest, while in 
Africa there is not an individual who. according to our stand- 
ard, has attained a high decree of intellectual culture : but if 
obvious causes for this can be shown, it is unphilosophical 
to infer firom it an essential incapacity. 

But the question seems to me to be put at rest, by what 
we all must have witnessed of what has been achieved by 
the colored race in this country and on the coast of Africa. 
Unfavorable as their position has been for any intellectual 
progress, we still all of us know that they are competent to 
the common arts and business of life, to the ingenious and 
mechanical arts, to keeping accounts, to the common branch- 
es of academical and professional culture. Paul Cuffee's 
lame is familiar to everybody in my part of the country, and 
I am sure you have heard of him. He was a man of un- 
common energy and force of character. He navi orated to 
Liverpool his own vessel, manned by a colored crew. His 
father was a native African slave : his mother was a mem- 
ber of one of the broken down Indian tribes, some fragments 
of which still linger in the corners of Massachusetts. I have 
already alluded to the extraordinary attainments of that na- 
tive African Prince. Abdul Rahhaman. If there was ever a 
native-born gentleman on earth he was one. He had the 
port and the air of a prince, and the literary culture of a 
scholar. The learned Blacksmith of Alabama, now in Libe- 
ria, has attained a celebrity scarcely inferior to his white 
brother, who is known by the same designation. When I 
lived in Cambridge a few years ago. 1 used to attend, as one 
of the Board of Visitors, the examinations of a classical school, 
in which there was a colored boy, the son of a slave in Mis- 
sissippi, I think. He appeared to me to be of pure African 
blood. There were at the same time two youths from Geor- 



17 

gia, and one of my own sons, attending the same school. 
I must say that this poor negro boy, Beverly "Williams, was 
one of the best scholars at the school, and in the Latin lan- 
guage he was the best scholar in his class. These are in- 
stances that have fallen under my own observation. There 
are others I am told which show still more conclusively the 
capacity of the colored race for every kind of intellectual cul- 
ture. 

Now look at what they have done on the coast of Africa. 
Think of the facts that were spread before you in that ab- 
stract of the Society's doings, which was read this evening. 
It is only twenty-five or thirty years since the little colony 
was founded under the auspices of this Society. In that 
time what have they done ; or rather let me ask what have 
they not done? They have established a well-organized 
constitution of republican government, which is adminis- 
tered with ability and energy in peace, and by the unfortu- 
nate necessity of circumstances, also in war. They have 
courts of justice, modeled after our own ; schools, churches, 
and lyceums. Commerce is carried on, the soil is tilled, com- 
munication is open to the interior. The native tribes are 
civilized ; diplomatic relations are creditably sustained with 
foreign powers; and the two leading powers of Europe, 
England and France, have acknowledged their sovereignty 
and independence. Would the same number of persons 
taken principally from the laboring classes, of any portion of 
England, or Anglo- America, done better than this ? 

Ah ! sir, there is an influence at work through the agency 
of this Society, and other Societies, and through the agency 
of the colony of Libera, and others, which I hope will be es- 
tablished, sufficient to produce these and still greater effects. 
I mean the influence of pure, unselfish Christian love. This 
after aD, is the only influence that can never fail. Military 
power will at times be resisted, and overcome. Commercial 
enterprise, however well planned, may be blasted. State poli- 
cy, however deep, may be outwitted ; but pure, unselfish, 
manly, rather let me say heavenly love, never did, and in the 
long run never will fail. (Applause.) It is a truth which this 
2 



18 

Society ought to write upon it? banner?, that it is not politi- 
cal nor military power, but the moral sentiment, principally 
under the guidance and influence of religious zeal, that has 
in all age? civilized the world. Arms, craft, and mammon, 
lie in wait, and watch their chance, but they can not poison 
it? vitality. Whatever becomes of the question of intellec- 
tual superiority, I should in?ult this audience, if I attempted 
to argue that in the moral sentiments, the colored race stand 
upon an equality with us. I read a year or two ago in a 
newspaper, an anecdote which illustrates this in so beautiful 
and striking a manner, that, with your permission, I will re- 
peat it. 

When the news of the discovery of gold reached us from 
California, a citizen of the upper part of Louisiana, from the 
Parish of Rapides, for the sake of improving his not prosper- 
ous fortunes, started with his servant to get a share, if he 
could, of the golden harvest. They repaired to the gold re- 
gions. They labored together for a while with success. At 
length the strength of the master failed, and he fell danger- 
ously sick. What then was the conduct of the slave in 
those far off hills ? In a State whose constitution did not 
recognize slavery, in that newly gathered and not very thor- 
oughly organized state of society, what was his conduct? 
As his master lay sick with the typhus fever, Priest and Le- 
vite came, and looked upon him, and passed by on the other 
side. The poor slave stood by him, tended him, protected 
him ; by night and by day his sole companion, nurse, and 
friend. At length the master died. What then was the 
conduct of the slave in those distant wastes, as he stood by 
him whom living he had served, but who was now laid low 
at his feet by the great Emancipator ? He dug his decent 
grave in the golden sands. He brought together the earnings 
of their joint labor; these he deposited in a place of safety 
as a sacred trust for his masters family. He then went to 
work under a Californian sun to earn the wherewithal to pay 
his passage home. That done, he went back to the banks of 
the Red River, in Louisiana, and laid down the Httle store at 
the feet of his master's widow. (Applause.) 



19 

Sir, I do not know whether the story is true ; I read it in 
a public journal. The Italians have a proverbial saying of 
a tale like this, that if it is not true, it is well invented. 
This, sir, is too good to be invented. It is, it must be true. 
That master and that slave ought to live in marble and 
in brass, and if it was not presumptuous in a person like me 
so soon to pass away and to be forgotten, I would say their 
memory shall never perish. 

Fortunati ambo ! si quid inea carmina possint, 
Nulla dies unquam memori vos exiniet aevo. 

There is a moral treasure in that incident. It proves the 
capacity of the colored race to civilize Africa. There is a 
moral worth in it, beyond all the riches of California. If all 
her gold — all that she has yet yielded to the indomitable in- 
dustry of the adventurer, and all that she locks from the 
cupidity of man, in the virgin chambers of her snow-clad 
sierras — were all molten into one vast ingot, it would not, 
in the sight of Heaven, buy the moral worth of that one 
incident. (Applause.) 

Gentlemen of the Colonization Society, I crave your par- 
don for this long intrusion upon your patience. I have told 
you — pardon that word, you knew it before — I have remind- 
ed you of the importance of the work, of the instrumentality 
by which it is to be effected, of the agents chosen, as I think, 
in the councils of Heaven to carry it into effect ; and now 
what remains for us, for every friend of humanity, but to bid 
God speed to the undertaking ? 

[The honorable gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud 
and long continued applause.] 



Note. I perceive from a note to the foregoing speech as republished in 
the Colonial Herald, that in speaking from memory of the Expedition to the 
Niger in 1841, I considerably overrated the mortality among the whites. 
Nearly every white member of the expedition was disabled by sickness from 
the performance of duty ; but forty only died. This mortality, however, re- 
quired the immediate abandonment of the enterprise. E. E. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION-ITS PRINCIPLES 
AND AIMS. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



JOHN H. B. LATROBB 



President of the American Colonization Society, 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZA- 
TION SOCIETY HELD IN THE SMITHSONIAN 
INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON CITY, 

JANUARY 18, 1859. 



BALTIMORE: 
PRINTED BY JOHN D. TOY. 



The following Address was delivered at the Anniversary Meeting 
of the American Colonization Society, held at the Smithsonian 
Institute, in the City of Washington, on the Evening of the 18th of 
January, 1859. It has since, in pursuance of what appeared to be 
the wish of the Meeting, and at the invitation of the friends of 
Colonization in those Cities, been repeated in Richmond, Va. — Eliza- 
beth City, New Jersey, — New York, Albany, Harrisburg, Cincinnati 
and Philadelphia. It is now published in accordance with the res- 
olution of the Anniversary Meeting. Its principal object is to exhibit 
Colonization in what is believed to be its true aspect, — as a scheme, 
which, fitted to the circumstances of our country, must rely on the 
natural course of events for its full development, in a voluntary, 
cheerful, self-paying emigration of the free people of color to Africa, — 
the result of their own conviction that they will better their condition 
by removal, while they, at the same time, establish a separate and 
honorable nationality, pregnant with the happiest promise. 




COLONIZATION: 



ITS PRINCIPLES AND AIMS 



Forty-two years ago, the Rev. Robert Finley 
of New Jersey developed, in the City of Washing- 
ton, the idea of planting a colony in Africa, that 
might induce the free people of color "to go and 
settle there."* 

* It is not to be inferred from what is said in the text, which has 
reference to the organization of the American Colonization Society 
only, that Mr. Finley originated the idea of a Colony, such as was 
afterwards established, on the Coast of Africa. The idea belongs to 
others. It was Finley, however, who developed and made it avail- 
able, as stated above. Brissot, in 1*788, travelling in the United 
States, met Dr. Thornton, who told him of "the efforts which he had 
made for the execution of a vast project conceived by him. Per- 
suaded that there never could exist a sincere union between the whites 
and blacks, even on admitting the latter to the rights of freemen, he 
proposed to send them back," says the traveller, "and establish them 
in Africa." "He, (Dr. Thornton) proposed," continues Brissot, 
"to be the conductor of the American negroes who should repair to 
Africa. He proposed to unite them to the new colony of Sierra 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

He was moved, he said, by "their increasing 
numbers and their increasing wretchedness." 

Commended by some, ridiculed by others, but 
proclaiming to all that he knew the scheme was 
from G-od, he persevered, until in December, 1816, 
the American Colonization Society was organized. 
Here, his existence seemed to culminate. He then 
went home and died. Before the exploring expe- 
dition sailed, he was in his grave. We meet, to 
night, to report progress in his plan. 

We have been gradually advancing in the pros- 
ecution of it. If our steps have been unequal, 
they have been unfaltering. The colony has be- 
come a Republic. Recognized by many among the 
leading nations of the world, it is now known every 
where as the independent government of Liberia. 

It is still feeble, but it stands alone. It possesses 
the elements of future strength. It has good laws 
well administered, churches and schools, the mu- 
tual aid societies of more advanced communities, 
agricultural exhibitions even, with their annual 

Leone. He had sent, at his own expense into Africa, a well instruct- 
ed man, who had spent several years in observing the productions of 
the country, the manufacturers most suitable for it, the plan most 
convenient, and the measures necessary to be taken to secure the Col- 
ony from insults," &c, &c, &c. — Brissol's Travels — Mavor's Com- 
pilation, 19 vol. pp. 190, 261. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



prizes, — ;t militia tried and not found wanting, a 
traffic with tin- interior, a foreign commerce. 
Light houses guide ships into the [torts to substi- 
tute for the slave trade something better in the 
f 1 1 1 ami man. 

With a government modelled after our own, 
with rulers chosen, and well chosen too, thus far, 
by themselves, with a Boil to which they are akin, 
capable of self-support, Belf-government and self- 
the people of Liberia are slowly develop* 
b distinct nationality. No longer mere emi- 
grants from the Dnited States experimenting 
doubtfully, they are Liberians, Americo-Liberians 
us their phrase is, Looking forward to a future of 
their own. Fast losing our traditions, they aim 
at 1 »«■■ ■< .in i 11 lt historical themselves. Meanwhile, 
with steady purpose, they pursue quietly and hon- 
orably the course of their destiny. 

The first condition of Colonization lias thus been 
fulfilled. It remains to be seen whether the 
Becond will be accomplished: whether the free 
people of color will be induced, in Finley's words, 
... and Bettle" in the home that has been pre- 
pared for them, thus bringing about the avowed 
object of our organization, "their removal with 
their own consent to Africa." 




AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

To prepare for, and facilitate this removal, we 
have been more than forty years at work. 

The census of 1820 gave a free colored popula- 
tion of 233,534. In 1850, it amounted to 434,495. 
It is now, probably, half a million. It has more 
than doubled since our Society was founded ; while 
the emigrants in Liberia and their descendants do 
not exceed twelve thousand souls. Not a twentieth 
part of the increase has been removed by us. Our 
toil, apparently, has resulted in less than "a drop 
in the bucket." How vain then, say our un- 
\ friends, must be our efforts for the removal of the 
mass. 

We admit it frankly. We go further: we admit, 
that if such removal depended upon the American 
Colonization Society, even though Congress threw 
open to it the treasury of the nation, the work 
would never be accomplished, and the scheme 
would be the delusion it has so often been pro- 
claimed. 

This, however, is not the true view of Colo- 
nization. Money alone may suffice to plant a 
colony and facilitate the earlier emigration: but 
it is powerless to control the affections ; powerless 
to sever the ties that bind to hearth-stone and 
grave-stone, to give the weak strength, the timid 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

confidence. And yet, all this must be effected in 
tin- transplantation of a people. 

The reliance of Colonization, in this regard, is 
neither upon strength of organization, nor bound- 
lessness of resource, but upon one of the com- 
monest of all the impulses of humanity — the desire 

TO BETTER ONE'S CONDITION 

It is this which brings the European to Ame- 
rica, — which takes the Englishman to Asia and 
Australia, (live and Warren Hastings owed it 
their wealth and their renown. It has built up 
for ns, in ten years, an empire, in resources and 
extent, on the Pacific. It will carry to Africa 

BVBRY inn: PKB&OH OF COLOR IN AMERICA. 

They will go there, not because fascinated by 
the eloquence of Colonization Agents ; not for want 
of love to the land they leave; but they will go 
"to better their condition." 

They will go, too, ultimately, when the exodus 
of the mass takes place, at their own expense. 
Commerce will furnish the ships to carry them; 
thus acquitting itself, in part, of the debt con- 
tracted to the race when it brought them origi- 
nally to our shores. 

All that Colonization has done, or aimed at 
doing, has been in view of this voluntary, self- 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

paying, ultimate, emigration ; an emigration that 
finds its precedents in the history of every people, 
from the nomadic tribe, whose encampment shifts 
with failing springs or withering pasturages, to 
the community that, driven by religious persecu- 
tion from the old world, landed from the May- 
flower, or that which encountered the perils of 
Cape Horn attracted by the gold fields of Cali- 
fornia. 

In this, the true aspect of Colonization, it is 
independent of the shewings of the census. It is 
to be judged, rather, by what has been already 
effected in Africa, and by the probable future of 
the free people of color in America. 

Were Africa as attractive to the latter as 
America is to the European, and it is in the 
power of Colonization Societies^ with their limited 
means even, to make it so, — or, were the repul- 
sions of this country to influence them, as do those, 
for example, of Great Britain, the Irish, the emi- 
gration to Liberia, for a single year, of the same 
numbers that commerce, in a single year, has 
brought from the old world to the new, would 
suffice for the removal of the free; and a like 
emigration, continued for some seven or eight 
years, for the removal of both slave and free, were 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



both at liberty to depart. Doubling the time, to 
allow for increase during the process, and the 
entire removal would fall within twenty years. 

But so speedy a removal is impossible. The 
case is put for illustration only. Years must 
elapse before the increase even can be approxi- 
mated. Time and circumstances, however, are 
competent to the work. Time, so powerful, so 
unheeded. Circumstances, beyond all control, 
and which time is rendering irresistible. 

We have, here, two distinct races, the white and 
the colored: the latter, originally slaves, consist- 
ing now of slaves and freemen. 

The slave — protected, provided with food, shel- 
ter and raiment, treated in the vast majority of 
cases kindly, affectionately often — is without, care 
as regards his physical wants, and with constitu- 
tional good humor passes happily, in the main, 
through life. 

The free, on the other hand, without an especial 
protector, dependant upon himself alone, living, 
as the bills of mortality seem to shew, a shorter 
life than the slave,* and made to feel in a thousand 

* The increase of the colored population in what are called the free 
States and Territories, from 1840 to 1850, was 14.38 per cent., 
throughout the United States it was hut 12.47; the slave popula- 



A 



w;iys his a cial and political inferiority, either 
- .way existence in aspirations, which, here, can 
be realized, or. yielding hopelessly to circum- 
stances, falls with benumbed faculties into a con- 
dition that is little better than the b] 

miration concerns itself with the free alone. 
Their condition has long been appreciate I Aa early 

- 788 ssot, hight de Warville. friend i 

black- a Carlyle calls him. travelling in this 

conn:: says :hem. that " deprived of the hope 

- _ a f honor or trust, they seem 

condemned to drag out their days in a state of 

Finlev dwelt on their " increasing 

■ - . 

— 5 ma Return; 

- er cent, increase, here credited to the free colored 
population in the - on must be 

r.i :'.: „ jr...-. :": r . - z States, ~\ here eomndpated 

I from which escapes are of 

constant occurrence. It may be donb:- acreage by births 

among the colored population of the North is one per cent per annum. 

.he returns of tr. :>re quoted. 

auth;- ■ ird. 

* The en tire passage:? T~horn- 

ton. "This ardent friend of the black? goaded, that 

we car- i sincere union between them and the 

as lone ~er so much in color and in their rights as 

no other cause the apathy per . many 

blacks, even in Massac re they are free. De- 

hope of ejecting or being elected. . :o places of honor and 









AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



numbers and increasing wretchedness," in 1815. * 
The Society's first memorial to Congress, in 1817, 
signed by its great and good President, Judge 
Washington, refers to their condition as "low and 
hopeless." It was worse than it had been; for 
La Fayette, when here in 1824, is reported to have 
remarked upon its deterioration as compared with 
what it was at the Revolution. That it was uni- 
versally recognized as bad, and that the hope of 

trust, the negroes seemed condemned to drag out their days in a 
state of servility, or to languish in shops of retail. The whites re- 
proach them with a want of cleanliness, indolence and inattention. 
But how can they be industrious and active, while an insurmounta- 
ble barrier separates them from other citizens?" — Brissot's Travels, in 
Mavor's Compilation of Voyages and Travels, vol. 19, pp. 260, 261. 

* The following extract from a letter from Mr. Finley to Mr. John 
P. Murnford of New York, affords the earliest evidence we have of 
his views in regard to Colonization. 

Dear Sir, Basking Ridge, Feb. 14, 1815. 

The longer I live to see the wretchedness of man, the more I 
admire the nature of those, who desire, and with patience, labor to 
execute plans for the relief of the wretched. On this subject, the 
state of the free blacks has very much occupied my mind. Their 
number increases greatly and their wretchedness too, as appears to 
me. Everything connected with their condition, including their 
color, is against them; nor is there much prospect that their state can 
ever greatly be meliorated while they remain among us. Could not 
the rich and benevolent devise means to form a colony on some part of the 
Coast of Africa, similar to the one at Sierra Leone, which might gradu- 
ally induce many free blacks to go and settle, devising for them the means 
of getting there, and of ■protection and support till they were established, 
$c. — African Repository, vol. 1. p. 2. 

Ti 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

improving it was a leading motive with the earlier 
Colonizationists, in 1816, is unquestionable. 

And yet, in 1816, and for years afterwards, the 
days were halcyon days, comparatively, for the free 
people of color. No strife with the whites for 
employment then. There was work for all. No 
feeling of antagonism between the races. The 
foreign immigration immaterial, to the colored 
man's great relief. Certain kinds of labor his, by 
prescription. In competition with the whites, he 
most frequently the favored one. Societies to pro- 
tect him from imposition, every where. Affections 
born at the breasts of slave nurses, fostered when 
playing with slave children, still lingered around 
the race made free. 

But what is their condition now? In individual 
cases, the free man of color is wondrously im- 
proved. Better educated is he; more refined; 
with appreciative tastes, an elevated ambition, 
comfortable means, wealth, often. It would seem, 
indeed, that while Liberia was being built up, the 
race that were to rule it had been vindicating, in 
anticipation, their capacity to conduct affairs with 
intelligence and success. And yet, the condition 
of the free colored population, as a class, is infe- 
rior, far, to what it was in 1816. 



12 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

They have been the victims of riots in more than 
one Northern and Western City. Excluded from 
many an accustomed calling, practically if not 
legally, in New York ; no longer stevedores, 
caulkers or coal heavers in Baltimore, or fireman 
on the South Western waters, or levee laborers in 
New Orleans ; crowded out of employment in the 
great hotels ; disappearing as domestics in private 
families, they find, by sad experience, how irre- 
sistible is a white competition in a strife for bread. 
Legislation, too, has been invoked to straighten 
their condition. To prevent their increase, eman- 
cipations have been prohibited. Strenuous and 
continuous efforts, made under favorable circum- 
stances, to put them on a footing of social equality 
with the whites, have resulted only in increasing 
public prejudice.* Courts of justice have recog- 
nised the existence of this feeling, f and even in \ 



* A resolution, introduced in the Board of Education of Newark, 
N. J., to grant the colored population the same privileges and bene- 
fits in the public schools as the whites enjoy, was, after a warm dis- 
cussion, negatived by a vote of 12 to 5. — Colonization Herald, Phil- 
adelphia, March, 1859 

f In the case of McCrea (colored) vs. Marsh, lessee of the Howard < 
Athenteum, Boston, the Supreme Court, on the 4th inst. sustained 
the verdict for the Defendant. The Plaintiff, in face of the regula- 
tion excluding colored people, purchased a ticket for the "dress cir- • 
cle," and when he was refused admission at the entrance he attempted \ 



13 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

those States, which boast peculiar sympathies in 
their behalf, the distinction of caste pervades prac- 
tically, so far as they are concerned, the entire com- 
munity, both socially and politically 

And why should all this be? Why, at least, 
have the free colored people not been permitted to 
maintain the kindlier relations, indifferent as they 
were, of half a century ago? Personally, they 
have not deteriorated in the interval. They voted 
in Maryland up to 1809; and the popular almanac, 
at the beginning of the present century, in the 
States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and 
Virginia, was the work of Benjamin Banneker, an 
individual of unmixed African descent. Why 
then the change in question? 

There is but one cause to which it can be attri- 
buted, — the increase of our aggregate population. 
The two races are coming, day by day, into closer 
contact. Collisions, of old unknown, are begin- 
ning to occur between the masses of the respective 
populations. The old story of the Spaniard and 
the Moor is being re-enacted in our midst. We 
are but illustrating the law that invariably pre- 

to crowd in, and was put out of the building, no more force having 
been used than was necessary to eject him from the premises. — Colon- 
ization Herald, March, 1859. 

14 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

vails, where two races that cannot amalgamate by 
intermarriage occupy the same land. 

"This it is. and nothing more." 

In the State of Maryland, for example, there 
is already a redundant free colored population, 
amounting to thirteen per cent, of the aggregate ! 
In Pennsylvania, the proportion is but two and 
three-tenths per cent. In Massachusetts, less than 
one per cent. In Connecticut, less than two per 
cent. In Ohio, one and three-tenths per cent. In 
New York, one and six-tenths per cent. There 
are more free people of color in the slave State of 
Maryland than in the great free States of Ohio 
and New York put together.* To Maryland, there- 
fore, rather than to any other State, may we look 
for the consequences of that increase in the aggre- 
gate of population, to which we have attributed 
the change for the worse, which, in fifty years, 



* Extract from Table XII. of the Census of 1850.— Quarto Edition, 
page xxxiii. 

White. Free Colored. Slaves. Total. 

Maryland, 417,943 74,723 90,368 583,034 

Pennsylvania, ...2,258,160 53,626 2,311,786 

Massachusetts, 985,450 9,064 994,514 

Connecticut, 363,099 7,693 370,792 

Ohio, 1,955,050 25,279 1,980,329 

New York, 3,048,325 49,669 3,097,394 

~15 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

has taken place in the condition of the free people 
of color. 

And what is the experience of Maryland? Of 
Maryland, whose kindness, practically, to the class 
in question, is to be inferred from the crowd that 
has collected within her borders. Of Maryland — 
which has expended more than a quarter of a mil- 
lion in promoting Colonization, and which, when 
unable for a season to pay the interest on her pub- 
lic debt, never withheld for an instant her annual 
subsidy of ten thousand dollars to the feeble 
colony, that had been founded under her auspices 
on the coast of Africa.* All her legislation looks 
to the necessity of separation. Laws, already 
stringent, are sought to be made still more so; 
and the reasons given by men of high character, 
; assembled in Convention on the Eastern Shore of 
the State, all resolve themselves into the "exis- 
tence of the present immense number of free 
negroes. 

Nor is Maryland alone in these views. A winter 
rarely passes without the introduction into State 
Legislatures of measures prejudicial to the free 

* The Colony at Cape Palmas, commenced in 1834 by the Mary- 
land State Colonization Society, long known as Maryland in Liberia, 
now incorporated with the Republic of Liberia. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



people of color? And even where there is no 
legislative action, there is an unwillingness to see 
their numbers multiply, which, year after year, 
is becoming more decided and demonstrative.* 

*The frequency of legislative enactments in regard to the free 
people of color, during the past winter, is startling in defmiteness, 
and in their very stringent features. Thus, Arkansas has passed a 
law to expel its free colored population. It is further provided that, 
if they do not leave during the present year, they are liable to be 
seized and hired out, so as to procure the means of removing from 
the State. The lower House of the Legislature of Missouri has 
likewise passed a bill, by a vote of eighty-eight yeas to twenty-nine 
nays, in which it is declared that all "free negroes" residing in the 
State in 1860, shall become slaves. It also forbids emancipation 
within the limits of the State. Similar measures have been proposed 
in the Legislatures of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North Caro- 
lina, Virginia, Maryland, and doubtless in other States. The Legis- 
lature of Arkansas passed an act which prohibits, under severe 
penalties, the employment of "free negroes" on water crafts navi- 
gating the rivers of that State. 

No slave, however worthy, can henceforth, in Louisiana and 
several other States, have freedom conferred upon him while in those 
States; neither is he permitted to return after being emancipated. 
The Supreme Judicial Tribunal of Virginia have decided, "that 
slaves have no civil or social rights, and that the slave cannot choose 
between freedom and slavery, if the offer be made him by his master; 
and that, consequently, a slave left by his master with freedom, if 
he choose to take it, can have no legal right to choose freedom, and 
must, therefore, still be a slave." It will thus be seen that the free 
colored man is likely to be driven from the Southern States by new 
legislative enactments; and that, where wills allowing the slave, 
at the death of the master, to elect freedom or continue in servitude, 
were once favored, now they are under the ban of law. 

The constitutions of the recently admitted free States show that 



n 



COLONIZATION. 

What then can be their anticipations? Appre- 
hensive, as the intelligent among them must be, of 

the colored man is not desired as an element of population. In the 
House of Representatives of Indiana a bill has been rejected, by a 
rote of sixty-five yeas to twenty nays, repealing the existing law, 
which makes • 'negroes and mulattoes'* incompetent as witnesses. 
In the Legislature of Michigan, a proposed amendment to the consti- 
tution of that State, granting to •■ negroes" the right of suffrage on 
a property qualification, was defeated. Even in the generally re- 
ceived pro-African State of Ohio, a law has just passed its Legisla- 
ture, which declares that no person having any African blood in his 
veins shall be permitted to exercise the elective franchise within that 
commonwealth. Petitions from citizens of Bucks and Philadelphia 
Counties, for a legal enactment to prevent ,: negroes"" of other States 
from settling in Pennsylvania, have been presented to our State 
Legislature. — Philadelphia Ledger. April 1. IS 59. 

The Pittsburg Gazette says, that a company of colored People in 
that City desired to form a party to emigrate westward and settle 
upon and pre-empt public lands. Their counsel communicated with 
the Land Department at Washington, and received in reply a flat 
refusal : — it being the settled ruling of that office that colored per- 
sons are not citizens of the United States, as contemplated by the 
pre-emption law of the 4th September. 1841, and are. therefore, not 
legally entitled to pre-empt public lands. — Colonization Herald, 
March. 1859, Philadelphia. 

Free Negroes Presekted. — It will be seen by the following pre- 
sentment of the Grand Jurors of this District, at the recent term of 
the Court of Common Pleas, that the evil of the presence of free 
negroes in this State has attracted their attention, and that they 
have taken the only means in their power to bring the subject before 
the Legislature of the State. We are pleaaed at this act of the 
Grand Jury, and hope other Grand Juries will follow the example, 
and thus impress the matter upon our law-makers until they shall be 
forced to abate the nuisance. 

Presentment of the Graxd Jcry. at Sp.uxg Term. 1859. — We 



- 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

the future, — hopeless, surely, of bettering their 
condition where they are, — whither can they look? 
They have already tried Hayti and found it want- 
ing. Alike in color, unlike in all other respects, 
they have neither affinities nor sympathies with 
its people. They have no desire to be hewers 
of wood and drawers of water in the British 
Colonies of Trinidad and Demerara. They fully 
appreciate the motives of those who invite them 
to the West Indies. With no spot on the Ame- 
rican Continent, not appropriated to the white 
man's use^ and his exclusively, whither can they 
go, to avoid the throng of multiplying thousands 
now competing with them in all the avenues of 
labor? Whither, when the West, which, now, 
by absorbing the foreign immigration, relieves 
them from the pressure on the seaboard that 
would otherwise crush them against the wall, — 
whither, when the West, too, shall have a redun- 
dant population, whither shall they go? Whither, 
but to Africa, — to that Africa of the Tropics, 
where climate, genial and salubrious to the de- 
scendants of the soil, protects them, as with a 

further present the free negroes of the District as a nuisance, and 
recommend that the Legislature pass some law that will hare the 
effect of relieving the community of this troublesome population. — 
Cherau (S. C.) Gazette. 

~ 19 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

wall of fire, against the encroachments of the 
white man,— guards the headland, — sentinels the 
mine, — and stays, even on the very border of the 
sea, on the river, and in the forest, that march of 
Empire, which pestilence alone can check. 

There may be some who imagine we are false 
prophets of evil ; some, who, in the sunshine of 
to-day, hope that the sky will never be obscured. 

Only a portion of our story has been told, how- 
ever. "Beholding the little cloud out of the sea, 
like a man's hand," pregnant with increasing evil 
to the free people of color, we would urge them to 
better their condition, by removal, "before the 
Heaven was dark with wind and rain." In doing 
so, we have dealt with the developments of to-day 
alone. Our calculations come up to the seventh 
census only. But what will be the shewing of the 
census of 1900. Judging from the past decades, 
our population will then exceed ninety-eight mil- 
lion. Many of my hearers will live to verify the 
estimate. In three score years and ten, the scrip- 
tural limit of a man's life, the fifteenth census 
will bring our numbers near to two hundred and 
forty million. Children are living who will be 
counted among these millions in 1930.* 

* The above results are obtained as follows. Table LXIII. of the 

'JO 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



1810. 


1820. 


1830. 


1840. 


1850. 


36.18 


34.12 


34.03 


34.72 


37.74 


72. 


25.25 


33.86 


20.87 


12.47 


33.4 


29.10 


30.62 


23.31 


28.82 


36.44 


33.35 


33.26 


32.74 


35.86 



If then we are correct in attributing the present 
condition of the free people of color to the addition 

Quarto Edition of the 7th Census gives the "ratio of increase in the 
United States of white, free colored, slaves and total population since 
1790." Thus 

1800. 

Whites, 35.68 

Free Colored, 82.28 

Slaves, 28.1 

Aggregate,.. .35.01 

Averaging the decades, and we have for the decennial increase of 
the whites 35.41; of the free colored, 41.62; of the slaves, 28.74; 
and of the aggregate of population, 34.44 per cent. 

The above proportion of the increase of the aggregate is not given 
in Table LXIII., but has been calculated from its data. The calcu- 
lations of the Table refer to the aggregate of the free and the aggre- 
gate of the colored only. 

Table LX. gives the proportion of the white, free colored and 
slaves, for the above periods, as follows : 

1790. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 

Whites, 80.73 81.13 80.97 81.57 81.90 83.17 84.31 

Free Colored, ... . 1.57 2.04 2.57 2.47 2.48 2.26 1.87 
Slaves, 17.76 16.83 16.46 15.96 15.62 14.57 13.82 

The foregoing tables shew sufficient uniformity in the past seven 
decades to authorize an average in estimating the population at 
future decades; and the average of the aggregate, or 34.44 per cent, 
has accordingly been assumed, with the following results: 
Estimated aggregate population of the United States at the next eight 
census periods respectively . 
1860. 1870. 1880. 1890. 1900. 1910. 1920. 1930. 



While it is admitted that these figures afford approximations only, 
and that a wide margin must be allowed for possible contingencies, yet 



21 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

of twenty-one million to the aggregate population 
of 1816, assuming the latter to have been nine 
million, and the total now to be thirty million, 
what will be their condition, when we number 
sixty-eight million more ; and what again, when we 
add two hundred and ten million to the population 
of to-day? 

We commend the question to every lover of his 
country. Earnestly, solemnly, as a friend, who 
for more than thirty years has labored in their 
behalf, we commend it to every free colored man 
in America. 

Had Ireland, in 1847, been inhabited by white 
and free colored men, in the Maryland proportions, 
influenced, too, by like feelings, which would have 
borne the brunt of the great famine? 

millions may be dropped from the estimate, and still leave an increase 
large enough to justify the anticipations of the text. It will 
matter little to the free colored man, in 1930, whether the pressure 
that crushes him proceeds from a population of 200,000,000 or 
240,000,000. 

The actual numbers of the respective classes of the population at 
the several decades from 1790, as shewn by the same tables, are as 
follows : 

1790. 1800. 1810. 1820. 1830. 1840. 1850. 
Whites, 3,172,464 4,304,489 5,862,004 7,861,937 10,537,378 14,195,695 19,553,068 
F.Col'd, 59,456 108,395 186,446 233,524 319,599 386,303 434,495 
Slaves, 697,897 893,041 1,191,364 1,538,038 2,009,043 2,487,455 3,204,313 

Aggreg'e, 3,929,827 5,305,925 7,239,814 9,654,596 12,866,020 17,069,453 23,191,876 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

The famine of 1847 is not the last that may 
occur in the history of the world. Those who 
anticipated its coming by emigration to America, 
to better their condition, "before the Heaven was 
dark with wind and rain," manifested a wisdom 
that we do not venture to hope will be exhibited 
here, in a similar emigration to Africa, for years 
to come. The free colored people themselves, 
however, are unwittingly hastening such a result. 
They resolve for instance, in Ohio, that "a combi- 
nation of capital and labor, will, in every field of 
enterprise, be their true policy ; that combination 
stores of every kind, combination work shops, 
combination farms, will, if every where estab- 
lished, greatly increase their wealth and with it 
their power." And they publish these resolutions, 
too, as if to place themselves in direct antagonism 
to the whites, as a distinct race, with separate 
interests, struggling for power!* They are pro- 

* Convention of Colored People for the State of Ohio.— A Con- 
vention of colored men for the State of Ohio, designed to institute 
measures and take action which shall gain for the colored citizens 
political and social rights equal to those of the white citizens, as- 
sembled in Cincinnati on Wednesday morning, at the Baker Street 
Church. Among the resolutions adopted were the following : 

Resolved, That we saj to those who would induce us to emigrate 
to Africa or elsewhere, that the amount of labor and self-sacrifice 
required to establish a home in a foreign land, would, if exercised 

23 



ajj.::^.:: ;::;::;:a::::: 



voking a contest which the commonest prudence 
counsels them to postpone or to avoid. They are 
_ . strife in which they cannot but be 
ste .. They are warring, not against Coloni- 
alists, •"• I use their own words, "would 
induce them to emigrate to Africa or elsewh 
but against the inevitable future : and their 
pect oi success is in exact proportion to their 
ability to diminish the in ; . : our population, 
. I paralize our wondrous and unprecedented 
.•pment. In all this^. they are but working 
out their destiny ; but accelerating the approach 
of that voluntary self-paying emigration, which 
will be the fruition of the Colonization scheme : a 
scheme to succeed fully, perhaps, after generations 
onlv: but thoroughly meeting all the exigenci 

here, redeem oar native land from the grasp of slavery : therefore 
we are resolved to remain where we are- confident that ' 'troth is 
mighty and will prevail." 

Rttoictd. That a combination of labor and capital will, in every 
field of enterprise, be onr true policy. Combination stores of 
kind, combination work shops, and combination farms will, if every- 
where established, greatly increase oar wealth, and with it oar 
: jwer. 

Ruolnd. That the State Central Committee be instructed to pre- 
pare two petitions for general circulation, one to be signed by whites 
favorable to equal rights, and the other by the colored people, male 
and female, old and young, omitting none who are able to make 
their mark. — BaUiwtort Lilly Exchangt. 29 Xottmber, 1858. 



.- 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



L 



the future; the work of friends, not unfriends; 
counselling, not compelling ; leaving it to the 
irresolute, the inert, the unfitted, the visionary, to 
linger out existence where they are; but pro- 
claiming to the ambitious, the energetic, the intel- 
ligent, and the brave, new fields of enterprise 
beyond the sea, where talent, capital and labor, 
instead of being confined to stores and workshops, 
may be devoted to the development of a nation's 
prosperity and renown. 

Nor are there wanting still higher motives to 
suggest to those for whom the Colony, proposed 
by Finley, has been founded, to induce them "to 
go and settle there." As a missionary people, 
their' s will it be to influence and control the des- 
tinies, to a great extent, of the vast continent, to 
which they will bear the blessed truths of that 
Religion, whose temples, in the fulfilment of pro- 
phecy, must yet be reflected in the tranquil waters 
of the Tsad and the Ngarni, assemble their 
thousands of worshippers in the broad valley of 
the Niger, and commemorate the exploit of Liv- 
ingstone, as they arise along his route on the 
banks of the Leeba and the Zambesi. 

But it may be said, that in the next forty or 
seventy years the free colored population will be 

"lb 



AFR1 : AN SOLONIZATION, 

I si sight of, even should it remain here, as a 
turbid confluent is lost in the clearer hue of the 
great river to whose volume it forms but an incon- 
siderable addition. 

It might be so, were the "wretchedness" 
referred to a matter of proportion. But. due as it 
is to the aggregate of population, the pressure 
will be regulated by the density of the mass. 
White striving with white, as well as white with 
colored, will feel it : with this difference, that 
where there is not bread enough for both, those 
will be the greatest sufferers who are socially and 
politically the weakest. 

Regarding Liberia then, as the means of obvia- 
ting results which, were there no Liberia, would be 
among the gloomiest apprehensions of coming 
years, we can hardly place too high an estimate 
upon what has been accomplished by Coloniza- 
tion. As well might we disregard the feeble 
thread of water that trickles across the levee, when 
the Mississippi, at the season of its floods, threatens 
to "o'er bear its continents/' as disregard Liberia 
in its relations to the United States: for as the one 
may prove the outlet through whose wasting bor- 
ders the swollen and unbridled stream, fertilizing 
even where it overwhelms, may sooner find the 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

gulf of Mexico, so the other may become the means 
by which the increasing and redundant volume of 
our free colored population may diffuse over 
another land the civilization and religion it has 
accumulated during its abode in this. 

Not only may we not disregard Liberia, but we 
feel as though we did not dare to doubt its destiny. 

This is not the occasion to reiterate the oft told 
story of Plymouth and Jamestown. We all know 
how long it was before success crowned the efforts 
of those who laid the foundations of New England, 
and how little it was that Smith, who strode, like 
a paladin of old, through the forests of the New 
world, was able to accomplish in the establishment 
of Virginia. The wisdom and the chivalry of 
Europe were represented in the contest with the 
wilderness of America; and king Philip at Mount 
Hope, and Powhatan on the James Kiver, vindi- 
cated in many a bloody contest the valor and the 
prowess of the race, whose last lingering rem- 
nants now seek, in vain, towards the setting sun, a 
refuge from the overwhelming wave of a civilization 
which not even Christianity may moderate that 
they may be preserved. 

But, how different was it on the coast of Africa. 
A few emancipated slaves, a few free people of 

17 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



color, ignorant and inexperienced, foot sore and 
weary, landed at Monrovia, maintained themselves 
against the natives, who would have driven them 
into the sea, received, slowly, year after year, 
accessions from America, and hy degrees acquiring 
strength and making no step backward, finally 
proclaimed their independence, and are now the 
people we have described. 

What could have strengthened such weak hands 
save the blessing of Him from whom cometh every 
good and perfect gift. Nor can we doubt that the 
blessing will be continued unto the end ; and we 
look forward to the future of Liberia, as we do to 
the future of California and Oregon ; and we are 
not more certain that a teeming white population 
will line the Sacramento and the Columbia, than 
we are, that the free colored people of the United 
States and their descendants will carry our language 
and our institutions up the Cavalla and the St. 
Paul's, and, crossing the dividing mountains, make 
them familiar to the heart of Central Africa. 

For the accomplishment of these results, we rely 
neither upon the spirit of adventure, such as ani- 
mates the young, and is fitful and capricious; 
upon the love of gold operating on all, but requir- 
ing a California or an Australia for its full devel- 



28 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

opment; upon religious excitement, which too 
often exhausts itself far short of the mark it aims 
at; upon political aspirations or patriotic impulses: 
but our reliance is upon the inevitable increase of 
our aggregate of population. Adventure may die 
out, gold may pall, religion become apathetic, 
politics inoperative, and patriotism a dream ; but 
years after years will, nevertheless, add their hun- 
dreds of thousands to the numbers of our people, 
until the ninety-eight million of 1900 will be made 
up, and the two hundred and forty million of the 
fifteenth census will be completed. 

So noiseless is this mighty increase that we no 
more heed it than we do the flight of the hours that 
hastens the results that it involves. We note the 
progress of the tide as it creeps upwards on the 
sand — the shadows as they lengthen with the 
waning day, — for we walk the beach and watch the 
dial ; but the growth of the population of a country, 
vast as ours, is beyond the limit of daily individual 
observation, and exhibited only in statistics too 
dull to have an interest for the mass, neither 
teaches nor warns, until both teaching and warn- 
ing may be too late. 

Just now, however, there is much restlessness 
among the free people of color in many parts of 

~29 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

the Union. Sometimes, it exhibits itself in plans 
for obtaining information — sometimes, in combina- 
tion resolutions — sometimes, in an emphatic deter- 
mination to remain where they are — as if Coloniza- 
tion, instead of offering them an asylum, sought 
to force them into exile. But, whatever form this 
restlessness assumes, it proceeds from a doubt, fast 
becoming general, whether America, after all, is 
more than a temporary abiding place; a doubt sug- 
gested, not, as often asserted, by Colonizationists, 
but by circumstances, wholly beyond their control, 
and which, having foreseen, they have provided 
against in the establishment of Liberia. 

Great events in the world's history rarely come 
unheralded to those who watch the portents of the 
times. Washington, Napoleon, Cromwell, were 
the developments of long germinating principles, 
the maturities of years of preparation. When they 
appeared, every thing was in readiness, and their 
missions were accomplished. So, we humbly hope, 
has it been with Colonization. It exists, because 
the time for it has arrived. The opposition it has 
encountered, the vituperation with which it has 
been assailed, the slowness of its progress, have 
all had their uses in perfecting it. The day of its 
ordeal has not yet drawn to a close. But the 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

cloud that retards, the sunshine that hastens ma- 
turity, are incidents only in the history of the 
golden fruit that blushes at its own beauty before 
Autumn's gaze. So with men and with nations. 
We may not prejudge their destiny from the 
isolated facts of their existence; but, gathering 
the whole into one category, find in the result the 
evidence of that overruling wisdom, that makes all 
discord harmony in the accomplishment of its 
designs. 

It is in this connection that the interest, which 
has of late years sprung up in regard to Africa, is 
not without its significance. Half a century and 
more ago, Park lost his life at Boussa, and no man 
was tempted to enterprise in the direction of his 
grave. Northern Africa was the corsairs. Egypt 
obeyed the Mamelukes. Belzoni had not pierced 
the Pyramid. Few were the strangers who in- 
clined the ear at sunrise before the vocal Memnon. 
The Cape of Good Hope was little more than a 
water station on the voyage to India. On the 
borders of Africa, the barracoon was the evidence 
of civilization, and the maps represented the 
interior as a desert impassable by man. 

But presently, all this is changed. The corsair 
disappears. The Mamelukes are exterminated. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

The ascent and exploration of the pyramids, a can- 
ter across the plain of Thebes, become the pleasant 
incidents of a summer's tour. Civilization marches, 
drum and trumpet in the van, perhaps, north- 
ward from the Cape. The Christian Church rises 
not unfrequently on the ruins of the barracoon. 
Denham sees the Tsad. Clapperton finds his way 
to Sokatu. The Landers make their voyage down 
the Niger to the sea. Steam subsequently ascends 
the river. Caille becomes an explorer. Andersen 
is the hero of the Lake Ngami. Barth opens up 
another portion of the Continent. Livingstone 
crosses it from St. Paul de Loando to Quillimane, 
and gives to the Niagara of Africa, the name of the 
Queen of England. Missionaries multiply every 
where. New maps are made, and cities and towns, 
and great rivers and lesser streams, and mountain 
ranges and intervening vallies, and divisions into 
kingdoms, whose rulers bear now familiar names, 
fill the void on the maps of the deserts of the old 
geographers. Cotemporaneous with all this activ- 
ity, Colonization completes its experiment, and 
Liberia stands forth its illustration and its tri- 
umph. 

Commerce, too, the right arm of civilization, the 
agent we rely on for the scheme we have at heart, 



32 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



has been busy in the interval.* Palm oil has 
become a necessity. Hides, camwood, ivory, gold 
dust, gums and spices, take the place of human 
beings in the traffic of the country. Steam carries 
the mails of Great Britain along the windward and 
leeward coasts to the Islands at the bottom of the 
Bight of Biafra. At a recent meeting, in London, 

*No less than four Liberian vessels have arrived in the United 
States this year, with cargoes of Liberian produce. Of what descrip- 
tion and value those products are, may be judged from the cargo of 
the schooner Antelope, which arrived here on the 14th inst. She 
has 14,000 pounds of sugar, 17,000 gallons of syrup, palm oil, cam- 
wood and some coffee, and could have obtained double the quantity 
of sugar had she waited ten days longer, as the farmers were busy 
manufacturing it, and bringing it down the St. Paul's river to Mon- 
rovia to market where it found a ready sale. 

We are informed that a colored firm, Messrs. Johnson, Turpin & 
Dunbar, have established a commercial house in this city, in connec- 
tion with one at Monrovia, for the purpose of facilitating and pro- 
moting the Liberian trade, and have purchased the bark "Mendi," 
a vessel of 300 to 400 tons burthen, to run as a regular freight and 
passenger packet between this port and Monrovia, making three or 
four trips a year. They have also contracted for a small steamer, 
which they design to run coastwise between Cape Palmas and Mon- 
rovia, touching at all principal points to collect freight and passen- 
gers, and to connect with the above vessel on her regular sailing 
days; though the chief object of this enterprise will be to collect the 
mails along the coast, with a view to supply the deficiency in the 
mail service occasioned by the British steamers discontinuing to 
touch at Monrovia, as they have hitherto done. This will insure 
regularity in the mails, which, under the present arrangements, are 
very uncertain, and will be a great accommodation to merchants and 
others. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce, May, 1859. 



33 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

of the African Steamship Company, it was stated, 
that there were now "almost as frequent communi- 
cations with the interior of Africa, as ten or twelve 
years ago were had with Constantinople." Not 
the least interesting of the facts, reported on this 
occasion, was the use that the native Africans were 
themselves beginning to make of the facilities 
which steam affords. ' 'The number of negro passen- 
gers," it was said, "paying from five to ten dollars 
a head, had increased from eight to twelve hun- 
dred, and it was expected would soon be doubled 
from Sierra Leone to Lagos, and from the Bonny 
and the Palm oil rivers to Cape Palmas and the 
Kroo country." Trade, in fact, is expanding itself 
in all directions. Cottons, with the stamp of the 
mills of Massachusetts, are found far inland among 
the native tribes on the banks of the Zambesi. 
New markets of immense extent are being opened — 
virgin markets almost — at a time too, when all 
existing markets are glutted with the products of 
a manufacturing skill, whose faculty of supply, ex- 
ceeding every present demand, requires just such a 
continent of consumers as Africa affords, — a con- 
tinent whose wants are capable of doubling even 
the clatter of every loom, and the ring of every 
anvil in Europe and America. 

34 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

Can it be, that this newly awakened interest in 
Africa — these new relations that are being estab- 
lished with its people, are accidental merely, having 
no connection with the masses of free Christian 
and civilized descendants of Africans amongst us. 
Can it be nothing more than a curious coincidence, 
that, when the time has come for the unsealing of 
a continent, that revelation may be inscribed there — 
this people — the only people competent to the work, 
should be found qualified to embark in it ; a peo- 
ple, too, that must go somewhere. Is it not far 
more probable, that their existence here is but a 
part of that grand series of events, that are to co- 
operate until prophecy shall be fulfilled ; not 
to-day or to-morrow, not in this generation or the 
next, but speedily, notwithstanding, looking to the 
scale of time by which are measured the epochs of 
society. 

We are confident that we do not over-estimate 
our cause, when we place it in the relations that 
are here suggested. The test proposed upwards of 
eighteen hundred years ago, on a far more solemn 
occasion, when it was said, "refrain from these 
men and leave them alone, for if this counsel or 
this work be of man, it will come to nought," is 
one which the past history of Colonization and 



35 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



Liberia has fully demonstrated their capacity to 
stand. Forty-two years of labor have not been 
thrown away. Jefferson, Madison, Munroe, Mar- 
shall, Mercer, Harper, Randolph, Clay, supported 
not a cause, which, in the hands of their successors, 
will fail to realize their expectations. Ashrnun, 
Buchanan, Randall, sleep not in vain beneath the 
palm trees of Liberia. A new member has not 
been added to the family of nations without a 
mission to fulfil in the history of mankind. Ceas- 
ing to be ignored by the politicians of the day, 
philanthrophy shall yet be thanked by statesman- 
ship for its labors on the coasts of 'Africa. And 
the light which Park and Lander and Living- 
stone, the representatives of their periods of ex- 
ploration, have shed on this great continent, and 
the feeling now pervading the world in its regard, 
shall yet guide and cheer the march of thousands 
and tens of thousands of emigrants ; — a march as 
determined as that which brought forth Israel from 
beneath the shadow of the pyramids, — as triumph- 
ant as that celebrated by Miriam's song; — a march 
heralded by the gospel, and bearing back to Africa, 
in the blessings of 'civilization and religion, trea- 
sures more precious far than the gold and silver 
vessels of which Egypt was despoiled, in those days 



36 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

of old, when, with timbrels and dances, the pro- 
phetess proclaimed — "the horse and his rider 
are thrown into the sea." Preceded by no 
plagues — pursued after by no oppressors — protected 
by "the Right Hand — glorious in power," such 
shall yet be the march of the free people of color 
of our country; and in the cities which they will 
build, the institutions they will establish, the laws 
they will maintain and the knowledge they will 
impart, will be recognized the vindication of the 
holy confidence, the persevering enthusiasm, that 
animated the founder of our society, when he pro- 
claimed that "he knew the scheme was from God." 



31 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



^ICST ADDEESS 



DELIVERED BY 



HON. JOHN H. B. LATROBE ; 

President of the American Colonization Society, 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING OP THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION 

SOCIETY, HELD IN THE HALL OP THE HOUSE OP 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON CITY, 

JANUARY 21, 1862. 



WASHINGTON : 

PRINTED BY H. S. BO WEN, 
1862. 



Resolution of Board of Directors, .January 2§ ; l r \ 
Resolved, That the Address delivered last evening before the Society by its 
esident, the Hon. John H. B. Latrobe, be promptly issued in pamphlei 
rm for gratuitous circulation. 



COLONIZATION. 



Never, perhaps, since Finley, in 1816, proclaimed that "he 
new the scheme of African colonization was from God," has the 
miversary meeting been called to order with more profound emo- 
on than is now felt by the presiding officer. Nor does he doubt, 
I the least, that his hearers participate in his feelings. 

The great statesmen who launched the ship of our cause, at the 
istigation of the New Jersey clergyman — Jefferson, Madison, 
andolph, Harper, Mercer, Clay — confided it at once to the philan- 
lropists who have since plied its oars and trimmed its sails, as 
ith varying speed, it has pursued its way under a summer sky and 
pon placid waters ; and the periodical records of the voyage have 
een heretotore, almost always, illuminated, richly as a missal of 
Id times, with the gay colors and the golden tracery which hope- 
il enthusiasm spread upon their pages with a lavish hand, in 
lese halcyon days of prosperity and peace. But now, the same 
hip, to pursue the simile, though still keeping its course, presses 
nward through angry waves and beneath a threatening heaven, 
'he thunder of artillery, the clangor of trumpets, the roll of drums, 
\e clash of steel, are echoing on all sides ; and were the narra- 
ve of its progress to embrace the current events of cotemporary 
istory, it would contain many a sad episode of battle and death, 



6 

wkh all the aaiserahle a c c oa apa nimin ts of civil war. Th 

timli iiif. proof of the divinity of hs origin. 
The early advocates of African colonization looked loitasa 
n.fi-f :: _t:t: :.:;^f ::zii:::~ ::':le ::tt ::::. ; ;: :l:r.:z :- 
il_- i- i, t :!::;: illy; : " ?f r in: :~ r :'z.z~ :r: — i • : ~:i : _ .:_ :~e 
slaves, that was prrjndiriil to both parties ; or of eivflirirg and 
christianizing Africa, according to their resp^ — 

Box it does not appear that any of them, even anoas thr 
Mem we have named, ippmi iifd the great truth on which, in i^ 
Z-t —i:\-r 5?~z.z—z IrT-i _ •; : ::; -_ — . i" I — /.: i ~ _-. ". .1: ". "- 
fitt races, bc fa r een wrkmm amalgamation, by intermarriage, teas im- 
pmsri ik.emddmtrtr0 t i n pytke*mmmlmad,impfmu, on terms of so- 
ds! and paStical eamafifa;." This, which may be regarded as a 
±- : \ -i: : ■ - :'.. "- . : — ::' : - - - z minll y :~ i =".•:— > . - 
--. :-.i_- ->t : .;. .- 1:7. i~ i ;- :i:« iifi::i. _;:.ir ::_•? 

: -- : r_:- 7 : :- _ - : :. ^ r ._\ 1 - _ - .. - :. 

- ' xt. which amply dtastrates it, was a sealed book, whose 
teachings were valueless, simply beeaese no one tnmed to its pages 
to discover them. The population of etrhi miiiions. then, was 
so smalL in comparison with the extent of ocr country, that the 
fetter was assumed to be, for all practical purposes, iiiunitabl — 
:.:-:::;:-::;■;; >-: ; .■ - ■ . ;;._.-.::" Uo. • . .11: 
: .- :' 1- . - - . ■ z , . : ;_-. 1: 1 : - : :i 

■■ - . : :r:T-.::-::::z^i:.::?.: •■•■ •:•.•»:•;- ic-: >. - : 

up u ai d s of 290.000,000 in 1930, this law of races, wiih its in 
table consciences, became so obrioos that h could no longer be 
overlooked- :o provide for its operation, to be prepared 

for the exigency of the exodns of a whole people, that the scheme 

faith and hope, to aaatnre it, came into existence five and forty 
-rs ago, and that Liberia, afterwards, assumed its place among 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 7 

le nations ; and to Him who rilled the mind of Finlev with the 
Ian, who softened the hearts of those whom he invoked to aid 
im, and who has since strengthened the weak hands which have 
ibored in the cause, be ascribed the honor and the srlorv. 

Three years ago, from this platform, the present speaker ven- 
tured to use these words : "Ceasing- to be ignored by the politi- 
ians of the day. philanthropy shall yet be thanked bv statesman- 
hip for what it has accomplished on the coast of Africa." The 
rediction has already been, to some extent, fulfilled ; and public 
len, amid all the excitements of the hour, are even now studvino - 
lans of colonization, with a view of providing' new homes for 
hose who, as was said on the same occasion. " must 20 somewhere." 
""he times have forced the question upon them even earlier than 
ras anticipated. 

But. as with inventors, so it often is with politicians. Inse- 
uity exhausts itself in reinvention: and old and discarded things 
re apt to be adopted as original, because investigation has been 
ostponed until the urgency of occasion has prevented it frombeincr 
horough. Thus, at present, colonization in the West Indies, col- 
nization in Central America, colonization in South America, are 
eing discussed and urged, when each of these schemes has. years 
so. been examined, weighed, and abandoned. Colonization in the 
territories of the United States has been already tried, and with 
esults too. that ought to be eminently suggestive : for the Indian 
ransplanted by us beyond the Mississippi has, long since, 
equired agents to protect him from the intrusion of the white 
lan ; and many a longing eye is being cast, from beyond the 
ndian border, upon the broad prairies and the tall forests, where 
ie descendants of the original possessors of the whole land are 
?ebly endeavoring to protract the term of an existence which is 
apidly drawing to its close. 

As it is with the home of the Indian beyond the Mississippi, so 



8 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

will it be with every spot on the American continent, and with 
every adjacent island on which the white man can live and thrive; 
and to establish a free colored people upon either continent or 
island will be but to bequeath the struggle of races to a future gen- 
eration, when, the numbers being greater and the enmity more 
bitter, while the area of the strife remains the same, the contest 
will be fiercer, without the smallest change in the result. 

And what will be this result ? What but the extirpation of the 
weaker party or its removal to a home where the white man can- 
not follow it : not because of the intervening sea, because steam 
has bridged the sea, but because pestilence and death, with swords 
of flame, debar the white man's entrance. Africa is this home and 
Liberia is its portal. 

It is true, that in speaking tfeus emphatically we are looking to 
the future; but then, is it not for the future that we are called upon 
to provide ? The vice of the politicians of the day is that they 
deal with the present as though it were unchangeable. They legis- 
late for thirty-two millions of people without reference to the de- 
cennial increase of thirty-four and a half per cent. They delight in 
make-shifts. They are enamored of emollients. They lose sight of 
the fact, that the arable lands of the United States are a fixed quantity, 
by far, very far, the greater part of which has long been taken up, 
while the population of the country must increase from thirty-two 
millions to two hundred and tbirty-two millions in a life-time from 
to-day. They forget the effect that a redundant population must 
have upon wages, and ignore the idea that the latter can ever ap- 
proach the European standard on this side of the Atlantic. The 
possible consequences of such a result, its influence upon the great 
questions now agitating the country, they have not yet considered. 
This is a problem they want the patience, just now, to attempt to 
solve. But, were they to rise from the level of politics to that of 
statesmanship, and provide for the future as well as for to-day. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 9 

ley would no more think of colonies of free people of color on 
lis continent or its islands, than a pedestrian, in removing the 
tone that tripped him, would think of placing it where he must 
gain fall over it. 

Still, a great advance has been made. Colonization has, at last, 
ecome a matter for discussion in the halls of Congress ; and, hav- 
ng truth for its basis, discussion must lead to its development, 
md America and Africa be benefited by the result. 

There is one thing, however, to be carefully avoided in this con- 
lexion. The idea of compulsion must not be associated with the 
cheme. The law of races is of itself competent to bring about 
very desirable result. It is of daily and hourly operation. It is 
elt at firesides, when husband and wife, talking over their affairs, 
ecognise its force and agree that they " must go somewhere." It is 
elt in the fields, in the streets, in all the occupations in which the 
ree colored people have heretofore found employment, and in all 
>f which there is now standing, at the colored man's elbow, a 
vhite man, ready to take his place whenever he shall leave it, 
;ven if he does not, without reference to his wishes, actually eject 
lim from it. In this way it affects communities and becomes pow- 
irful in the building up of nations. Depending, as does the colo- 
lization scheme, upon individual action for its results, there must 
)e nothing connected with it against which individual pride may 
•evolt — for pride is every day overruling interest and sacrificing 
lappiness. Emigration must be left to the conviction of the par- 
ies that they will do better in another land ; and the silent work- 
ng of the law of races, quickened by the pressure of a redundant 
population, will be all-sufficient, in due time, to make this convic- 
;ion irresistible. There needs no other compulsion. 

Nor are these the suggestions of mere expediency. They illustrate 
the constitutional provision upon which the American Colonization 
Society has acted from the beginning. It was then declared that. 



10 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

our object was "the removal of the free people of color, with their 
own consent, to Africa" — words which cannot be too often re- 
peated or two strongly emphasized, a* explanatory of the scope 
and meaning of the colonization scheme ; and which alike prohibit 
our becoming the agents of any plan involving compulsion, and 
pledge us to leave to the free man of color, so far as we are con- 
cerned, the time, the place, and the occasion of his emigration. — ■ 
All we can do is to facilitate his going. To this end our means, 
although limited — insignificant, indeed, comparatively — have hith- 
erto been competent. They have sufficed to found the colony and 
to support it in its earlier stages, and until it has become merged 
in the Republic of Liberia ; and, if we restrict the use of them to 
Africa, it is not because we would interfere with the colored man's 
selection of a new home, but because it is our solemn conviction 
that in Africa alone can his people find a permanent abiding place. 
If lighthouses now crown the headlands of Cape Montserado and 
Cape Palmas, if churches and mission stations and school-houses 
now dot the coast from Cape Mount to the Cavalla, if steam 
sugar mills are at work on the St. Paul's and steam saw-mills are 
busy on the Junk, if the trade between the seaboard settlements 
is carried on in vessels built in the yards of Monrovia, and if a 
foreign commerce is already prosecuted by merchant shipowners 
of Liberia, if all this has been done with such humble means as 
individual benevolence, and, sometimes, State appropriations have 
afforded, we may surely be permitted to say, without arrogance, 
that the blessing of the Almighty rests upon the choice which this 
Society has made of Africa as the future home of the free colored 
people of the United States. 

But, unlike the strength of Milo, ours has not increased from 
day to (lav with our growing burden ; and more efficient measures 
ought now to be adopted to promote the growth of the African 
Republic. Among the most important of these is the recognition 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 11 

by this country of the Government of Liberia — most important to 
the latter, and far, very far, from unimportant to ourselves. 

The United States, whose laws and institutions the Liberians 
have honorably illustrated in Africa, whose great names are per- 
petuated where Monrovia looks down upon the deep, where Clay 
Ashland marks the progress of civilization in the forest, where 
Harper stretches along the three hills of Palmas, and by many a 
stream and town besides, the United States, alone almost among 
the leading nations of the world, withholds its recognition of the 
Government of Liberia; and this, too, when within the last few 
years we have actually been dependent upon Liberia for the abili- 
ty to fulfil our treaties with reference to the slave trade : for, had 
Liberia refused, as she might have done, to receive the more than four 
thousand recaptured Africans, who in that time have been landed 
on her shores, what would have become of them I North and 
South, here, alike unwilling to take charge of them, a crowd of 
naked savages, they must have been thrown upon the coast, remote 
from their respective tribes, to become again the victims of the ne- 
farious traffic from which they had just been rescued, — a proceed- 
ing so repugnant to humanity that the withdrawal of every vessel 
of war maintained by us on the coast would have been preferable to 
its adoption. In lieu of this, Liberia received them, and distributed 
them among her Christian homes, where, from the last accounts, 
they are fast becoming qualified to have homes of their own, in 
which, before long, the prayers of grateful hearts will invoke bless- 
ings upon those who, in teaching the recaptives the arts of civilized 
life, have made them an example of what maybe done throughout 
all Africa by such agencies as our Society has established there. 

Whatever, then, may be the result of the present agitation of 
schemes of colonization, whether it may end in a still further post- 
ponement of the whole subject, or in immediate action, there 
ought to be no difficulty on the part of the United States in recog- 



12 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

nizing the Government of Liberia, if only in acknowledgment of 
benefits actually derived from it. 

And not only would the measure be just, but it would be expe- 
dient also. We are a nation of manufacturers as well as agricul- 
turists. We want markets for the products of our inventive genius 
and mechanical skill. We have fought for them in China, and spent 
hundreds of thousands in obtaining them in Japan, while, at the same 
time, we voluntarily exclude ourselves from almost the only virgin 
market in the world. We suffer our commerce to be burdened 
with a discriminating duty of twelve per cent, on all goods im- 
ported into Liberia from this country, from which the recognition 
of her Government would exempt us ; and the consequence is, that 
the trade from the United States, which was formerly a direct one, 
is now carried on in English vessels, or in American vessels sail- 
ing from British ports. France is seeking the interior of Africa 
up the Senegal, and from the Mediterranean, England is making 
her way to it from Sierra Leone, and Cape Coast Castle, and La- 
gos, and up the Zambesi, while the United States, with the pecu- 
liar facilities, which its relations to Liberia naturally afford, of 
accomplishing a commercial destiny in this connexion, such as 
France or England can never win, is neglecting its opportunities 
until they may be lost to it forever. 

That the trade here referred to may be appreciated as it should 
be, it may be stated, that while, in 1853, the export of palm oil from 
Lagos was but one hundred and sixty tons, its declared worth in 
1857 was 85,314,000. In 1852 the whole export of cotton from 
Abeokuta was nine bags, weighing about eighteen hundred pounds in 
all. In 1859 it was 416,311 lbs. The quantity of palm, oil sent 
annually from the western coast of Africa is at least sixty thou- 
sand tons, exceeding in value the product of a whale oil season. 
The quantity that reached Great Britain alone, in 1860, was 40,210 
tons, while the exports of British goods to the West Coast amount- 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 13 

id, for the first six months of the same year, to $3,656,310, being a 
rain of forty per cent, on the export of 1858. The present extent of 
his trade is not so remarkable as its rapid increase, and the efforts 
vhich are making by European nations to encourage and obtain it. 

But the pecuniary loss attending the destruction of our commer- 
cial intercourse with Africa, through Liberia, will not be the only 
esult to be deplored should our present policy be persisted in. — 
Commerce has been the great agent of colonization from the days 
)f the Phenicians down to the last arrival from Germany and Ire- 
and in the harbor of New York. It is the only agent upon which 
eliance can be placed to accomplish the voluntary self-paying 
migration to Africa, which will one day equal the emigration from 
Europe to America. With the necessity for such an emigration be- 
aming daily more and more apparent, it is, unquestionably, as un- 
vdse as it is unstatesmanlike not to encourage, in every possible 
vay, the commerce upon which, take place when it will, it must 
>e dependant. Foster commerce with Liberia, and colonization 
vill pay its own way, and our free colored population will pass 
rom amongst us, voluntarily and quietly, in the natural order of 
svents. Destroy this commerce — let its growth be hampered with 
estrictions — and Liberia must become a dependency of England, 
md we will have thrown into the hands of a rival all the advan- 
ages which Liberia yearns to accord to that land which, whatever 
he policy of the Government, is still the mother country of her 
>eople. 

Nor are the means of transportation which commerce affords alone 
o be regarded in this connexion. Commerce assists in preparing for 
he reception of the immigrants, as it increases the population, mul- 
iplies the resources, and enhances the wealth of the cities where they 
ind. The ship loads that now disappear in New York, as they are 
bsorbed in the population that commerce has accumulated there, 
rould have overwhelmed the village of New Amsterdam at any time 



14 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

within the first twenty years after its establishment on the island ff 
Manhattan. There is a law that regulates immigration according to 
the capacity of the particular locality, and which will operate in the 
colonization of Africa, as it has done in all the colonizations that have 
preceded it, Ah has been shown, in the case of the recaptives recently 
landed in Liberia, this capacity of the Republic is now upwards of 
four thousand per annum, even where the immigrants are mere bar- 
barians. But there is no doubt that a still greater number could have 
been received had they been of the character sent from the United 
States, provided with more or less means, and acquainted with the 
occupations and having the habits of civilization. Indeed, it may be 
assumed, that Liberia is now prepared to receive any number of emi- 
grants which, under any circumstances, may be landed there, until 
the removal of our free colored population shall be gradually and sat- 
isfactorily accomplished. African colonization is destiny. The col- 
onization of America Avas slower in the beginning, and yet what a 
people we have become ! The colonization of California was more 
rapid, because the gold there was more attractive to the adventurous 
of the United States than the religious persecutions of the Old World 
were repulsive to the Pilgrim Fathers. The colonization of Africa 
will be more certain than either was in the first instance; because, 
while persecution might have ceased in Europe, and the gold become 
exhausted in California, the law of races and the increase of popula- 
tion are inflexible and uncontrollable, and must be enduring in their 
operation, and absolutely certain in their results. 

In whatever aspect, then, recognition presents itself, it is com- 
mended to our favorable consideration. It obviates a discrimination 
which hampers commerce; it encourages kind feeling, which no na- 
tion, however great, is the worse for, from any other nation, however 
small ; it provides for exigencies that are daily becoming more mo- 
mentous: but, above all, and beyond all, it is an act just in itself, 
which the United States should no longer withhold from a people 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 15 

lich exists through its philanthropy, is an illustration of its wisdom, 
d must be an agent in the fulfilment of the purposes of its God. 

Nor, while we thus plead the cause of Liberia, is she speechless in 
r own behalf. It is no rock-bound coast, ramparted with ice, and 
ider a howling sky, that receives the emigrant from America. The 
;h and luxuriant vegetation of the tropics comes down to the very 
irders of the sea ; and although here, as elsewhere upon earth, com- 
rt and competence are to be won by toil alone, yet a climate conge- 
al to the nature of the individual gives to industry its reward 
rough all the seasons of the rolling year. The colored man is here 
s own master. The law of races here operates in his favor. It is 
s race which is the dominant one; and, dependant as this law is, 

this instance, upon climate, and not upon accident, it is his race 
lich must be paramount forever ; and from Robertsport, under the 
adow of Cape Mount, by Monrovia, where the first settlement was 
ade, by Bassa, where rest the ashes of Buchanan, by Sinou, and 
ipe Palmas, and Cavalla, to the Rio Pedro, and from the coast line 
definitely towards the interior, are homes prepared for those whom 
ccumstances, accumulating with the rapidity of the increase of an 
r alanche, will soon, measuring the time by the magnitude of the re- 
It, deprive of all freedom of choice, and leave no alternative but 
moval. 

Members of the American Colonization Society : The chair, at the 
tree anniversary meetings immediately preceding the installation of 
ie present incumbent, was successively occupied by Henry Clay, 
aniel Webster, and Charles Fenton Mercer. The West, the North, 
id the South — Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Virginia — were re- 
esented by them. The wonderous orator, the great expounder of 
e Constitution, the accomplished statesman and philanthropist, were 
lited in the support and advocacy of our cause. The inspiration of 
Leir presence is still around us. Were we permitted to see them in 
m perspectives of the spirit world — could another Beatrice, to an- 



16 AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 

other Dante, point out their majestic shadows, as they listened to 
"the roll of the red artillery" and the tramp of the close columns of 
armed men which blasted the earth they had left green with the vel- 
vet garb of peace, would not Clay be seen, with impatient gesture, 
head thrown back, and foot advanced, and hand extended, filling the 
Senate house with the thunder of his voice? Webster, statuesque, 
with folded arms, darting, from beneath his massive brow, gleams of 
living fire, as he invoked a world's vengeance on the violators of the 
Constitution ? And Mercer, calm and sorrowful, gazing from one to 
the other, as he prayed, with clasped palms, that eloquence and wis- 
dom so combined might save his country ? And would we not then 
seek counsel, if we might, from these bold, true patriots and states- 
men, as to our own course in the sad emergency of the times. — 
But the dream of the poet is beyond our realization, and we can only 
recall to memory what has passed away forever — walking, here on 
earth, by the light which experience has afforded us, turning neither 
to the right hand nor the left from the principles which have guided 
us from the beginning, and finding, in the faith of Finlcy, that "he 
knew the scheme was from God/' our warrant and our strength, in 
toiling through strife, as we have toiled in peace, to urge onward to 
a glorious end the grand cause of African Colonization. 



African Colonization. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE 



FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING 



OF THE 



l^mmtan $ttUuin*titu ^atittv, 



HELD IN 



Washington, D. C, January 19, 1869, 



BY 



Hon. Joseph J. Roberts, 

President of Liberia College, and formerly for eight years President of the 

Liberia Republic. 



jk. Branch Pffice 

OF THE 

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 

Room No. 34 Bible House, 

NEW YORK CITY. 

Rev. JOHN ORCUTT, Secretary. 



ADDRESS 

OF 

HON. JOSEPH J. ROBERTS,* 

Ex-President of the Republic of Liberia. 



Me. President : An annual meeting of the American Colonization 
ociety can never fail, I presume, to be an occasion of deep interest to 
le friends of an enterprise so eminently philanthropic in all its purposes, 
nd particularly grand in its design to introduce the blessings of civiliza- 
on and Christianity into the waste places of long-neglected and deeply - 
e^raded Africa. On theLO occasions, while the attention of the managers 
f the affairs of the Society is specially drawn to a review of the labors 
nd results of the year immediately preceding, and to the adoption of 
dditional measures deemed desirable or necessary to the further prose- 
ution of the undertaking, the minds of its patrons instinctively revert 
) the great objects originally contemplated by the enterprise, and a 
3vie\v of the progress that has been made in their definite accomplish- 
lent. And in turning their thoughts to these on the present occasion, I 
link there can be no question that, notwithstanding the stern opposition 
ncountered from certain quarters, in consequence of a total misappre- 
ension of the true policy and objects of the Christian promoters of 
Lfrican colonization, and the embarrassments and discouragements 
-hich have occasionally arisen from other causes during the progress of 
tie enterprise, the friends of the cause have great reason to-day for con- 
;ratulation and thankfulness at the wonderful success which has so far 
ttended their efforts — a success, I dare say, far beyond the most san- 
;uine expectation of those distinguished philanthropists who first gave 
orm and impulse to a scheme which, though surrounded by many diffi- 
ulties and apprehensions, they hoped and believed would, under Divine 
5 rovidence, eventuate in good and great results to a people they earnestly 
Lesired to benefit. 



The scneme of African colonization is the offspring of a great Chris- 
tian idea, which, more than half a century ago, fixed itself in the minds 
of Drs. Finley and Thornton, Gen. Charles Fenton Mercer, Elias B. Cald- 
well, Francis S. Key. and other kindred spirits, who deeply deplored the 
oppression to which the people of color were subjected in this country, 
and feeling profoundly impressed with the importance of devising some 
plan by which the condition of a part of this people might be immedi- 
ately and radically changed, and in such a way as to create a reflex 
influence which would produce a salutary effect upon — as then existed — 
the abominable institution of American slavery. Hence the organization 
of the American Colonization Society, which you, Mr. President, and the 
Board of Directors here present to-day. represent. Those pure and dis- 
interested men, with a wise forethought which penetrated far into the 
future, contemplated with earnest solicitude the accomplishment of designs 
in respect to Africa, no less gigantic in their proportions than important 
in their results ; and it is not surprising that irresolute minds questioned 
the ability of any mere private association to fulfill so great an under- 
taking. 

The programme of the founders of tho American Colonization 
Society, as I have always understood it, and which, as far as I know, 
has not been departed from, was: 1st. To establish on the shores 
of Africa an asylum where such of her scattered children as might 
choose to avail themselves of it would find a free and happy home; 
and in this connection they would fairly test the capacity of the 
African for self-government and the maintenance of free political 
institutions. 2d. That through tho instrumentality of a colony thus 
established, composed of men who had themselves been the victims 
of cruel servitude, additional facilities would bo afforded for the extirpa- 
tion of tho slave trade, then rampant, with all its attendant horrors, at 
nearly every prominent point along that Western coast. 3d. By means 
of Christian settlements, in the midst of that barbarous people, to intro- 
duce the blessings of civilization and Christianity among the heathen 
tribes of that degraded land. 

These were grand conceptions, embracing nothing loss than the 
founding of an empire with negro nationality, and the redemption of a 
continent from pagan superstition and idolatry. Of course, a work of 
such magnitudo required large material resources and suitable men as 
emigrants, to conduct it in a manner promising sviccessful results. We 
can, therofore, readily imagine tho serious misgivings which must have 
weighed heavily on tho minds of those good men when they ongaged in 
an enterprise necessarily involving, in all its details, so many apprehen- 
sions as to the future. But they wcro men of great faith and energy, 
fully imbued with the spirit of their mission in behalf of humanity and 



ligion, and, therefore, hesitated not to commit the success of their 
idertaking to the direction and support of an all-wise Providence. 

But it is not my purpose on this occasion to trace the history of tho 
nerican Colonization Society, either in regard to the opposition it has 
countered, or the sympathy and care by which it has been fostered and 
stained during its long years of agency in promoting the civil, social, 
d religious interests of Africa. The work of colonizing a people, under 
b most favorable auspices, has always been attended with many diffieul- 
s and discouragements; and, in the case of this Society, dependent 
tirely upon voluntary, individual contributions for the means of prose- 
ting its enterprise, and also considering the remoteness of the country 
which its efforts were directed, it could not be otherwise than that its 
ogress in colonizing would be slow and peculiarly difficult. Neverthq- 
ss, with unfaltering perseverance, the Society has pursued its course, and 
s already effected an amount of good that entitles it to the confidence 
d generous support of the Christian public. And yet, even now, it is 
netimes asked : " What has African colonization accomplished ? Have 
3 labors, the sacrifices, and the means which have been expended pro- 
ced such results as should satisfy the public mind of its practical utility 
d probable ultimate success ?" These questions, to be sure, may not be 
yarded as impertinent on the part of those who are really ignorant of 
3 history of African colonization, and what has actually been accom- 
shed under the auspices of the American Colonization Society. And as 
3se questions have been put to me more than once during my present 
sit to the United States, I don't know that I can do better than to avail 
/•self of this occasion to present a brief statement of the rise and 
ogress of Liberia under the auspices of this Society, and then I shall 
content to allow those who seem to be in doubt as to the utility of Afri- 
a colonization to settle tho question in their own minds as to whether 
3 colonization enterprise is entitled to their confidence and support or 
t. 

As soon as practicable after the formal organization of the American 
Ionization Society, and the necessary preliminary arrangements 
svards planting a colony in Western Africa had been concluded, steps 
>re taken for sending forward the first company of emigrants to organize 
lew civil society on that distant, barbarous coast. Therefore, early in 
q year 1820, eighty-six persons, from the States of Pennsylvania, Yir- 
aia, M aryland, and New York, assembled in the city of New York, for 
e purpose of embarking upon this new and perilous enterprise. It was 
profoundly anxious time, no less with the patrons of the Society than 
th the emigrants. The friends of the Society were deeply concerned in 
gard to the suitableness of the men about to be employed in so great 
. undertaking, and where so much depended upon the adaptability of 



the materials thus engaged for the foundation of a new civil and political 
superstructure. Doubtless their hopes and fears were about equally 
balanced. On the part of the emigrants, as often related to me by Rev. 
Elijah Johnson, the most prominent individual of the company, their 
feelings were greatly excited by conflicting emotions, which swayed to 
and fro between the present and the future. They were about severing 
all the ties of early associations, and many of them leaving comfortable 
homes for a far-off land, wholly unbroken by civilization, and presenting 
but few attractions — other than liberty dwelt there. They, therefore, 
resolved to flee a country which repudiated their manhood, and closed 
against them every avenue to political preferment ; and, with their lives 
in their hands, they determined to brave, not only the perils of the sea, 
but every other danger and inconvenience consequent upon settling in a 
new and heathen country, where they might establish for themselves and 
their children, and, peradventure, for future generations, a home, under 
governmental institutions, free from all the trammels of unequal law and 
unholy prejudices. These were true men, stout of heart and firm of 
purpose, and, in the sequel, proved themselves equal to the responsibili- 
ties they had assumed, and fulfilled the most sanguine expectations of 
their patrons and friends. 

Our Christian pioneers — like the Pilgrim Fathers just two hundred 
years before, when about to embark from Delft Haven, in search of a 
more desirable home in the new world — by solemn and appropriate 
religious services, committed themselves and their cause to the protect- 
ing care of Almighty God ; and, having completed all their arrangements 
for the voyage, sailed from New York on board the good ship " Elizabeth," 
on the Gth day of February, 1820, and, in due time, were landed on the 
coast of Africa, at the British colony of Sierra Leone. For obvious 
reasons, it was not contemplated to incorporate these emigrants with the 
inhabitants of this British colony ; and, therefore, early measures were 
taken to remove them to Sherbro Island, about one hundred and twenty 
miles south of Sierra Leone, where it was proposed to purchase lands 
from the nativo chiefs, and organizo a settlement, with the view of car- 
rying out tho original plans of the Society. This location, however, 
proved to be exceedingly insalubrious, and in a short time, many of tho 

Lers were prostrated by disease. Having encountered here many 
difficulties and hardships, and finding their numbers greatly reduced by 

'is, tho place was abandoned, and the survivors removed to Fourah 
Bay, within the precincts of Sierra Leone. This first attempt was, of 
course, discouraging, but tho emigrants faltered not in their purpose ; 
and, being joined at Fourah Bay, in March, 1822, by another company 
of pioneers, a second effort was determined upon at Capo Mesurado, 
which had, in tho meantime, been -elected and purchased by Captain 



Stockton and Doctor Ayres— a location much mors commanding and 
■ligiblo than the first, and, I have often thought, the very place of all 
>thers on that coast, designed by Providence as the starting point of our 
•ettlers. And in January, 1822, the colonists landed, and occupied a 
ittle island, comprising about three acres of land, near the entrance of 
he Mesurado River. This island, during its occupancy by the colonists, 
\ras the scene of many stirring incidents, and several, as appeared to the 
:olonists, providential deliverances ; wherefore, in commemoration of 
hese, it bears the name of "Providence Island." 

They had been but a short time on this island, when the foreign 
lave dealers, who were then conducting a large business in slaves at the 
}ape, became convinced of the danger to which their trade was exposed 
hrough the influence of the colonists, incited the natives to hostilities 
igainst the new comers ; and, without any previous intimation, they 
bund themselves cut off from all communication with the main land, 
whence they drew their only supply of fresh water. In this emergency, 
hey were providentially relieved by the kindness of a friendly chief, 
vho conveyed to them stealthily, at night, a sufficient quantity of water 
o supply their pressing demands ; and this he continued for several 
peeks. At this critical juncture, their public warehouse, with nearly all 
heir stores of provisions and merchandise, was consumed by fire, and 
heir utter ruin seemed now inevitable. But a remarkable incident, 
recurring a few days after, greatly contributed to their relief, and, pos- 
ibly, saved the little settlement from total destruction. A Spanish slave 
chooner, in charge of an English prize crew, bound to Sierra Leone, was 
maccountably stranded in the harbor, but a short distance from the 
sland ; and the commanding officer, having saved a large portion of 
he ship's stores, readily supplied the colonists with several articles 
uessingly needed to replenish their almost-exhausted means of sub- 
istence. 

After a while, through the intervention of a friendly chief, a partial 
econciliation with the natives was effected, and the colonists availed 
hemselves of the opportunity, April 25th, to gain a lodgment on Capo 
lesurado, where they placed themselves, as speedily as possible, in the 
>est state of defense their means would allow. The natives, however, 
irged on by the slavers, appeared still threatening in their demeanor. 
The Society's agents, under the conflicting aspect of things, became hope- 
Bssly discouraged, and proposed the abandonment of the enterprise, and 
he return of the emigrants to the United States. But our old hero, 
Elijah Johnson, was not so moved ; and, remembering something of the 
dstory of the difficulties and hardships of the early settlers of Plymouth 
,nd Jamestown, and feeling that by perseverance and patient endurance 
hey, also, might succeed, answered: "No; I have been two years 
earching for a home in Africa, and I have found it, and I shall stay 



here." In this determination the whole company, as though moved by 
some divine impulse, heartily concurred. Nevertheless, their situation 
was extremely perilous ; the natives had again suspended all intercourse 
■with them, leaving them in a painful state of apprehension and suspense. 
They knew, however, in whom they trusted, and upon whose strength 
they might rely. The arrival in the harbor, pending this uncertainty, of 
a British man-of-war, was particularly opportune, and doubtless delayed 
an attack upon the settlement, which, as was afterwards learned, had 
been concerted. The commander had an interview with the chiefs, and 
strongly remonstrated against their course towards the settlers. They 
listened sullenly, and replied evasively. The commander then tendered 
to the colonists a small force of marines, to aid in their defense, in case 
of need, and, at the same time, suggested the cession of a few feet of 
ground, on which to erect a British flag during his sojourn; but this, 
Elijah Johnson, then in charge of the colony, declined, for the reason, as 
he stated, " that it might cost more to pull down that flag than to whip 
the natives." JJowever, the services of the marines were not brought into 
requisition. Thus matters continued, when, on the 9th of August, the 
hearts of the settlers were cheered by the arrival of -another small com- 
pany of emigrants, with the intrepid and self-sacrificing Jehudi Ashmun, 
who entered immediately on the duties of his office as agent of the Amer- 
ican Colonization Society. Mr. Ashmun, having carefully surveyed -the 
situation, pushed forward with great energy the defenses of the settle- 
ment, and in the meantime, exerted every possible effort to reconcile the 
natives. The slavers, however, becoming more intent upon the purpose 
of ridding themselves of neighbors so inimical to their traffic, assembled 
a council of chiefs, and, by most inhuman artifices, so excited their 
cupidity as to induce King George, Chief King of the Dey tribe, to declare 
his intention of sacking and burning the settlement. 

Intelligence of this declaration, and of tho preparations being made 
for carrying it into effect, reached tho settlers, through a friendly native, 
who, at great personal hazard, found the means of advising them from 
time to time of what was going on. Our brave pioneers, with breathless anx- 
iety, awaited the impending struggle, when, at early dawn, on the mora- 
ine of tho 11th of November, about eight hundred warriors, with deafen- 
ing whoops, fell upon them with great fury. They were met, however, 
with steady firmness, and repulsed with considerable loss. The colo- 
nists again breathed freely in the hope that their most serious troubles 
were now fully ended. But not so. King George, with great secrecy, 
collected another and greatly augmented force, intending to surprise the 
settlement on all sides, and thus make the settlers an easy prey. Hap- 
pily for them, their good fortune in this extremity failed them not. Bob 
Grey, an influential chief of Grand Bassa, whom King George had 
attempted to enlist in his second attack, and who knew all his plans, con- 



9 

veyed to Mr. Ashmun timely information of all George's arrangements, 
and even named the day on which the attack would likely be made. 

Now, another very serious embarrassment presented itself. In the 
last fight the settlers had expended a large portion of their ammunition, 
especially powder; and how and where to obtain an additional supply cf 
this needed article were questions of the deepest concern. No trading 
vessel had visited the harbor for some time ; and despair began to dispel 
hope, when relief came in a very remarkable manner. During night, 
^vhile an English trading vessel was passing the Cape, the attention of 
the master was attracted by frequent reports of musketry on shore, which 
seemed to him singular at so late an hour, and, wishing to learn the 
3ause, turned and entered the harbor, and, in the morning, ascertained 
that the natives had been indulging, through the night, a grand war- 
lance — usual on such occasions when preparing for war. Unobserved 
by the natives, a sufficient supply of powder was obtained from this 
vessel. 

The dreaded time, as advised by Bob Grey, having arrived, sure 
mough, during the night of the 1st of December 1822, the native troops 
>ccupied positions on three sides of the settlement, as they supposed, 
mobserved ; and in the gray of morning rushed, like so many demons, 
ipon the almost defenseless stockade. But the colonists, with unflinching 
;ourage, notwithstanding the fearful odds against them, defended them- 
selves bravely; and after a desperate conflict of several hours, found them- 
selves again wonderfully preserved. I say wonderfully, because on this 
)ccasion the colonists seem to have exerted superhuman strength and 
powers of endurance, for there were only thirty-five effective men opposed 
;o a host of not less than fifteen hundred native troops. Some of the 
soul-stirring incidents and acts of real heroism on that memorable day 
ivould, I presume, if mentioned here, scarcely be credited. 

A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed, which the colonists strictly 
observed in prayer and praise to Almighty God for His wonderful deliv- 
erance. 

But King George and his slave-trading prompters were not yet sat- 
sfied. He again consulted his " gree-grees,'' and being again reassured 
)f success, he determined on another attempt ; and to place success this 
dme beyond peradventure, he would employ \ force sufficiently large 
;o overwhelm and destroy the colony, without the possibility of escape. 
With this view, he sought to engage the services of King Boatswain, 
jf Boporo, the most powerful and dreaded chieftain in that region. At 
lis invitation, King Boatswain, with a large retinue of warriors, made a 
idsit to King George, which was protracted several days, causing the 
3olonists extreme anxiety. King George, however, could present no just 
rround of complaint against the colonists therefore, Boatswain not only 
condemned his unp*ovoked enmity toward them, but, in very decided 



10 

terms, announced his determination to protect them in their new home. 
King Boatswain then called on Mr. Ashmun, informed him of the re- 
sult of his interview with King George, and assured him of his friend- 
ship. Neiter Mr. Ashmun nor King George mistrusted King Boatswain's 
sincerity, and very soon a good understanding was established with all 
the surrounding tribes. 

Now was settled definitely the question of a permament asylum. Liberia 
was established. Emigration increased ; intercourse and trade Avith the 
natives also increased ; new settlements were formed ; and in a few 
years the colony assumed an importance which secured to it several im- 
portant immunities. 

rYet many hardships and serious embarrassments had to be encoun- 
tered. The unhealthiness of the climate was a formidable enemy ; and 
the slave-traders along the coast ceased not their tamperings with the 
native cheifs to incite them to acts of hostility against the colony. 

But the time arrived when the colonists found themselves in a situation 
sufficiently advanced, not only to frustrate the machinations of these 
fiendish plotters, but to put in execution also their own long-cherished 
purpose of doing all in their power to extirpate a traffic which, aside from 
the extreme cruelties of the middle passage, had, for many years afflicted 
Africa with all the attendant consequences of war, rapine, and murder. 

On the execution of this purpose the colonists-entered with a hearty 
good-will; and, besides efficient service rendered from time to time by 
foreign cruisers then employed in suppressing the slave-trade on that 
coast, the slave barracoons at Mamma Town, Little Cape Mount, Little 
Bassa, New Cestors, and Trade Town, were demolished, and thousands of 
slaves liberated, solely by the power of the little Commonwealth ; and 
there was no relaxation of this purpose until every slaver had been ex- 
pelled from the whole line of coast now comprehended within -the«territo- 
rial jurisdiction of Liberia. 

During these years, all that related to the public welfare and general 
progress of the colony received proper attention. The Society's agents 
devoted themselves assiduously to the Govermental interests of the colony, 
and the colonists to their respective industrial pursuits, witb a zeal and 
activity truly commendable. 

As immigration increased, new points of the coast wero selected and 
occupied. Settlements were formed at Junk River, Grand Bassa, Sinoe, 
and Cape Palmas; and soon a lucrative legitimate trado began to develop 
itsoii between tho colonists and the natives 

In the meantime, the religious ami educational interests of the people 
were not only -:oi neglected, but every possible means were employed to 
extend and improve these; and it is with feelings of profound gratitude 
I allude to the lact that Liberia is to-day greatly indebted to tho several 
Missionary v Societies of tho United States for tho timely and efficient 



11 

efforts mado in behalf of colonists and natives to advance these essential 
interests ; and I shall hope that these Societies will continue their Chris- 
tian efforts until Africa, poor degraded Africa, shall be wholly redeemed 
from her present state of cruel barbarism. 

Under the fostering care and political guidance of the American Colo- 
nization Society, Liberia continued to advance in all her important 
interests. Her territorial limits increased by purchases from native 
chiefs, who were glad to place themselves and their people under the 
protection of the Colonial Government. A profitable trade, in African 
products, along the Liberian coast, soon attracted the attention of enter- 
prising merchants in Europe, and in the United States ; foreign vessels 
made frequent visits to Liberian ports ; and for many years this commer- 
cial intercourse was reciprocally remunerative and harmonious. But the 
time came when certain British traders repudiated the right of the Colo- 
nial Government to require of them the payment of custom duties on 
merchandise landed at points where, for centuries, British merchants had 
been accustomed to trade ; and also claimed to have purchased from the 
natives, with the perpetual right of free trade, certain tracts of land, for 
trading purposes, before the territories embracing said tracts were pur- 
chased and brought within the jurisdiction of Liberia. The Government, 
of course, declined to recognize these demands as paramount to its polit- 
ical authority, and therefore continued to enforce its revenue laws. These 
traders invoked the interference of British naval officers serving on the 
coast ; these offices, after unavailing remonstrances, submitted the ques- 
tion to the British Government ; that Government demanded a full con- 
cession of the immunities claimed by British subjects. A long and per- 
plexing correspondence ensued between British naval officers, acting 
under special instructions from their Government, and the Colonial 
authorities. Her Majesty's Government maintained that, as the Amer- 
ican Colonization Society, composed of mere private individuals, possessed 
no political power, and of consequence could delegate no such power to 
others ; and as the'levying of imposts is the prerogative of a sovereign 
power only, and as Liberia had no recognized national existence, she 
must, therefore, desist from all interruptions to the free intercourse ot 
British commerce. And the Liberian authorities were given distinctly 
to understand that this decision would be enforced by the British navy. 

Under this emphatic announcement, but one alternative remained open 
to the colonists, and this involved questions of the gravest importance, 
which awakened in Liberia, as well as on the part of its friends in this 
country, most serious reflections. For two years or more, the subject was 
under constant and earnest consideration; when, in January, 184G, the 
American Colonization Society, by a formal vote, recommended that the 
colonists "take into their own hands the whole work of self-government, 
and publish to the world a declaration of their true character as a sov- 



12 

jreign independent State. 1 ' The folloAving October, the colonists also 
,-oted to dissolve their political connection with the Society, and to assume 
;he entire responsibility of government, with independent sovereign power. 
i Constitution, adapted to the new order of things, having been adopted, 
jy delegates assembled in Convention for the purpose, July 26, 1847, and 
luly ratified by the people the following September, the Government was 
;hus reorganized, and entered, with some misgivings to be sure, upon its 
lew career and increased responsibilities. 

Its recognition by other Powers now claimed the earliest attention, and 
vithout delay measures were taken to this end by soliciting of foreign 
jrovemments an interchange of friendly national relations. And, within 
i year after the now organization, England, France, Prussia, and Belghim 
lad acknowledged the independence of the new Eepublic ; and shortly 
ifterwards treaties of friendship, amity, and commerce were concluded 
vith the two former. 

In the meantime, the domestic affairs of the country had progressed as 
satisfactorily as might reasonably be expected. Several matters of dispute 
between native chiefs were adjusted and settled ; public improvements 
vere extended ; agriculture and commerce increased ; and the people had 
steadily advanced in all the essentials of civilized life. Nevertheless, in 
die midst of this evident progress, many difficulties and embarrassments 
lad to be met and overcome. Occasional predatory incursions of the 
latives had to be checked and sometimes severely punished by the mili- 
ary power of the Government ; and foreign traders also, particularly 
British, caused the Government much trouble and annoyance. But, in 
die order of a beneficent Providence, all were successfully accomplished, 
md the majesty of the laws eventually maintained. 

From the beginning, the people of Liberia, with a commendable zeal 
and firmness, pursued a steady purpose towards the fulfillment of the 
great objects of their mission to Africa. They have established on her 
shores an asylum free from political oppression, and from all'the disabil- 
ities of an unholy prejudice; they have aided essentially in extirpating 
the slave-trade from the whole line of her Western coast ; they have 
introduced the blessings of civilization and Christianity among her heathen 
population ; and I may also assume that by their entire freedom from all 
insubordination or disregard of lawful authority, and by their successful 
diplomacy with England, France, and Spain, on matters involving very 
perplexing international questions, they have indicated some ability, at 
least, for self-government and the management of their own public affairs. 

And just here — as I find that exceptions are pretty generally taken in 
this country to the exclusion of whites from all participation in the Govern- 
ment of Liberia — I may remark that this provision in the organic law of 
the Eepublic was not prompted by any feelings of prejudice against white 
men, but was desirable more especially for the reason that the colonists 



13 

would retain in their own hands the whole control of the Government 
until they should fully demonstrate the problem as to their ability to 
conduct the affairs of a State. And, Mr. President, this, I suppose, may 
now be accounted as settled. The Republic of Liberia is now a fixed 
fact, with all the elements of free institutions and self-government, em- 
bracing within her territorial limits, at the present time, about six hund- 
red miles of sea-coast, and an interior over which she may readily ac- 
quire an almost unlimited jurisdiction whenever she shall bo prepared to 
occupy it. Within her political jurisdiction is a population of not less 
than six hundred thousand souls. Of this number fifteen thousand emi- 
grated from the United States and other civilized countries ; about four 
thousand recaptured Africans, and the remainder aboriginal inhabitants , 
and of these, hundreds have been hopefully Christianized, and many have 
become, in their civilized habits, so assimilated to the Americo-Liberians, 
that a stranger would not readily on the streets discriminate between 
them. 

In the four counties of the Republic are thirteen flourishing civilized 
towns and villages, with their churches, school-houses, and comfortable 
dwellings ' many of these constructed of stone and brick, and not only 
imposing in their external structure, but actually possessing all the neces- 
sary comforts and many of the conveniences of modern times ; and reflect 
much credit upon the industry and enterprise of their occupants. 

The developments of agriculture and commerce are no less conspicuous. 
The agricultural settlements, especially along the banks of the rivers, 
present most encouraging prospects. Besides an increased and steadily 
increasing production of all minor articles, sugar and coffee (to the growth 
(jf which the climate and soil are admirably adapted) are being' exten- 
sively cultivated ; and large quantities of both are now annually exported 
to foreign markets. 

Commerce has more astonishingly increased. I can remember when 
not more than thirty or forty tons of palm-oil, and perhaps as many tons 
of cam-wood, could be collected in a year, for export, along the whole line 
of coast now embraced in Liberia. The last year, though I have not at 
hand the official statistics, I may safely say, not less than six hundred 
tons of cam- wood, twelve hundred tons of palm-oil, and two hundred tons 
of palm-kernels were included in the exports of the Republic. And 
these articles of commercial enterprise and wealth are capable of being 
increased to almost any extent 

Ship-building for the coast- wise trade has become quite a business in 
each of the counties. Last year three Liber ian vessels, of foreign build. 
were dispatched for Liverpool with full cargoes of palm-oil, cam-wood, 
and ivory. 

I could heartily wish that the cause of civilization and Christianity, 
among the aboriginal tribes of that country, had advanced with equally 



14 

rapid strides as that of commerce ; nevertheless, much, real good has 
Leon accomplished in that direction also. Devoted missionaries from the 
United States have labored earnestly, many of them even sacrificing 
their lives in efforts to promote the Christian welfare of that people. 
Among the Americo-Liberians their Christian civilization has always 
been an object of deep solicitude. And it is a source of peculiar 
satisfaction to know that the Christian efforts in their behalf have not 
been fruitless. It is no uncommon thing even now, and all times a most 
pleasing spectacle, to see so many of these people, once the blind victims 
of heathenish superstition and idolatry, bowing side by side with their 
Americo-Liberia brethern at the same Christian altar, and worshipping 
the only true God. Nay, even more, there are now native Christian 
ministers and teachers in Liberia who are laboring successfully in the 
cause of Christ. Most of these native ministers and teachers, members 
respectively of the several Christian denominations, are men of seemingly 
deep piety, and very respectable acquirements and talents. If time per- 
mitted, I might particularize several of these, as well as other native 
converts, who, as citizens of the Republic, have distinguished themselves 
for usefulness, not only in the ordinary walks of life, but also in official 
positions under the Government. I may, however, allude to a single 
case : that of a native gentleman, who, about twenty-five years ago, then 
a heathen lad. was admitted into a Methodist mission school at Monrovia, 
where ho received the first impressions of civilization, and acquired the 
rudiments of an English education.; and who is now an acceptable mem- 
ber of the Liberia Annual Conference, and an inrluentiai member ol the 
Legislature of the Republic. And yet, Mr. President, there are those who 
inquire, "What has African colonization accomplished :" Well, my own 
conviction, confirmed by many years' experience in nearly all that relates 
to colonization and Liberia, is, that African colonization has accomplished 
a work unparalleled, as far as my knowledge goes, by anything in the 
history of modern times. 

I rejoice to meet hero to-night so many distinguished Christian 
philanthropists who, for these many years, have devoted much of their 
time and substance to this noble enterprise ; and 1 may be pardoned, I 
trust, in expressing the sincero satisfaction it affords me in seeing present 
at this meeting that old, devoted, and self-sacrificing friend of Africa 
and of African colonization, the Rev. R R Gurley who, by his burn- 
ing eloquence, in the days of his early manhood, and at times when this 
great Society seemed to languish under depressing discouragements, 
would stir the hearts of Christians in its behalf, and kindle there a flame 
of generous benevolence which would give new life and energy to tne 
great undertaking ; and, still more, not content to rely wholly on the 
testimony of others in regard to the actual condition of the infant colony, 
and to satisfy himself more fully as to its futuro prospects, he visited 



15 

Liberia several times, and on two occasions was enabled to render im- 
portant service to the little Commonwealth. I am happy to say that the 
people of Liberia to-day entertain towards our good friend, Mr. Gurley, 
sentiments of the highest regard and esteem ; and, I may also add, to- 
ward this Society, feelings of profound gratitude. But, Mr. President, 
I was about to say that these long and tried friends of African coloniza- 
tion entertain no doubts as to the immense benefits conferred upon 
Africa through the instrumentality of this Society, and who can now look 
back with profound satisfaction upon the cheering results of their individ- 
ual efforts in the cause of God and humanity. 

So much then for the past and present of Liberia. So far, God has 
graciously vouchsafed to her on occasions of threatened danger and 
3Xtreme peril, deliverances which no human forethought or mere human 
power could possibly have averted or rescued her from. He has won- 
lerfully sustained and prospered all her essential interests. What, then, 
nay we not hope and reasonably expect as to the future ? My own 
convictions are that Heaven has great things in store for Africa, to be 
xmferred doubtless through the instrumentality of Liberia. 

While Liberia is emphatically the offspring of American benevolence 
md Christian philanthropy, and while the friends of African colonization 
lave great reason to be proud of its achievements, it is no less clear in 
ny mind that the colonization enterprise was conceived in accordance 
vith a Divine purpose, looking to the redemption and elevation of a 
people long enchained in the shackles of cruel barbarism. And, if this 
)e so, Liberia is evidently designed to a glorious future ; and that it is 
:o, her past history seems clearly to indicate, for we find there so many 
svidences of Divine favor we are forced to the conclusion that Providence 
las not done so much for nothing. And besides, in the ordinary course 
if human affairs, there seems to me no reason whatever why Liberia may 
lot continue to prosper, and go on to distinguish herself in all that 
.dorns civil society and tends to national greatness. 

The country possesses certainly all ihe natural advantages common 
o most other countries, and in the means of animal subsistence, perhaps 
uperior to any other. I am aware that this beneficence of nature may 
>e regarded as a very questionable advantage, as it sends greatly to pro- 
note indolent habits. But this, I may safely say, no country in the world 
•etter remunerates labor, and especially the labors of the husbandman, 
han Liberia. 

The interior presents a country inviting in all its aspects : a fine 
oiling country, abounding iD streams and rivulets ; forests of timber in 
•reat variety, abundance, and usefulness ; and I have no doubt quite 
alubrious ; being free from the miasmatic influences of the mungrove 
wamps near the coast. 

The commercial resources of Liberia, even at the present time, 



16 5 

thoxigh scarcely commenced to be developed, are of sufficient importance 
to induce foreigners, American and European, to locate in the Republic 
for the purposes of trade. And I verily believe the agricultural and 
commercial sources of wealth in Western aud Central Africa are far 
beyond tho most carefully studied speculations of those even who are 
best acquainted with the nature and capacity of the country. The 
development of these will continuo to progress, and must, in the very 
nature of things, secure to Liberia great commercial importance ; and 
this will bring her citizens into such business relations with the peoples 
of other portions of the world as will insure to them that consideration 
which wealth, learning, and moral worth never fail to inspire. 

With what rapidity Liberia shall progress in her future career is 
a question involving several considerations; and, doubtless, the most 
important among these is a strict adherence by her people to the 
principles of true Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who disposes 
all things according to His own will. Of course, much also depends upon 
additional help from the United States to aid in advancing still more 
rapidly the civilizing and Christianizing her present aboriginal popula- 
tion, and so prepare them for greater usefulness as citizens of the Re- 
public ; and thb work shall go on penetrating into the interior, until 
other heathen tribes shall be brought within the scope of Christian civil- 
ization and incorporated in the Republic, thus forming an African nation- 
ality that will command the respect of the civilized world. All this I be- 
lieve to be entirely practicable. I believe Heaven designs that Africa 
shall be redeemed ; that the light of the Gospel of Christ shall shine 
there ; that her great natural resources shall be developed ; that she 
^hall take rank with other States and Empires ; that she shall have a 
literature and a history. Is there any reason why all this may not come 
to pass ? I trow not. Liberia has already made rapid strides — now in 
treaty relations with thirteen foreign Powers, including the United States. 
Then, surely, we havo every reason to hope and believe that a kind Prov- 
idence will continuo to watch over all her interests, and that her future 
career will be equally progressive. 

I know, Mr. President, you believe the Divine decree, that " Ethiopia 
shall stretch out her hands unto God ;" doubtless all Christians believe 
this. "Would, then, that Christians throughout these United States, and 
indeod all Christend >m, fully appreciated the responsibility they aro un- 
der to aid in the fulfillment of this inspired prophecy ; then, surely, this 
Society, undor whose auspices so much is being done toward the further- 
ance of that grand event, could not fail to receive that sympathy and sup- 
port necessary to tho efficient prosecution of an enterprise which promises 
so much real good to Africa. 

i 







CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY, 

PROMOTED BY 

AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



J^N .AJDIDIR/IESS 

DELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D. C, AT THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, JANUARY 19, 1869, 

BY 

S. IREN.EUS PRIME, E>. D. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 



It occurs to me, in approaching this great subject, that we 
are enlarging the area of freedom on the plan that infinite 
wisdom put into operation in early ages and has employed 
even down to our times for the advancement of the human 
race and populating of the globe. When the dispersion of 
Babel builders scattered colonies abroad, it was but repeating 
on a broader platform the separation of those who survived 
the deluge and became colonists of Asia, Europe, and Africa. 
History, poetry, and fiction, even heathen mythology and 
vague traditions, have chronicled the planting of colonies on 
inhospitable shores, the struggles of infant settlements, long 
years of hardships, when tempests and cold and heat and 
famine and pestilence and war, discouragements, disastei's, 
treason, desertion, death, all evils dire have rocked in the 
storm the cradle of infant nations — nations that in the future 
of their manhood became rivals and foes and perished by each 
other's hands. The Great Sea separated Carthage and Rome, 
but they were both colonies, frowning their hate across the 
waters and thirsting for each other's blood. Rome sent her 
colonies, like the light of the sun, into all the world, and her 
people unto the ends of the earth. Her ruins, dug from the 
soil of every country in Europe, are the dumb but eloquent 
witnesses of the civilization she carried into Gaul and Britain 



and through them to the spot where now a new world gathers 
her sons in the capitol that bears a name more illustrious than 
Hannibal orCaesar. Roman law — the science ofjurisprudenee — 
by Roman progress round the earth, has made itself a living 
part of the government of every civilized race of men. 

And when God left men in England and on the continent to 
become the oppressors of their kind, so as to drive the colonists 
from Britain and Holland and France to Jamestown and 
Plymouth and Manhattan, He, the Infinite and Eternal, with 
whom a thousand j'ears are but as one day, was only sowing 
the seed of that glorious harvest which now waves in beauty 
and abundance from the rock-bound coast of New England to 
the golden gates of the setting sun. 

Colonization was the germ ; emigration has fructified and 
brought it onward. It has been born and nurtured and has 
grown to be a power in the earth; it reaches across a conti- 
nent; it opens its arms to the old world, from which it came, 
and asks the people of all lands to come and find a home. 

Where, do you ask, are the tribes who once peopled the 
forests and the plains now covered with cities and vexed with 
railways and ploughs? Gone! and another, a better, happier, 
more useful race dwells on the graves of a departed people. 
Such is the order of Providence and nature both, and, per- 
haps, it will be the order of things in the revolution of cycles 
that mark the roll of the earth through succeeding ages of 
time. The population of the globe has steadily advanced in 
numbers, and will, while barbarism disappears before the ad- 
vance of civilization. The races that reject God and debase 
humanity perish upon the approach of the higher order ami 
type of men as the darkness of midnight flies at dawn. Thus 
the aggregate of human happiness grows on earth. If he who 
makes two blades of corn -row where one only grew before is 
a public benefactor, how much higher the benediction conferred 
by him who makes a mighty nation of intelligent, useful, Chris- 
tian, happy people live and thrive and rejoice where savage 
barbarity, misery and sin foruntold ages of wretchedness have 
had their dark and horrid reign. 

We plant Christian missions in the islands of the sea, and 
they cast away their idols to the moles and the bats; but the 



converted natives, the regenerated people, do not multiply and 
grow. T<hey are dying out: the murmur of the ocean on their 
coral shores is the nation's dime. But another race is coming — 
is there — is planting and sowing and buying and selling and 
building, worshipping God, marrying and multiplying, and the 
islands of the sea are rejoicing in God's law, His law of produc- 
tion, of civilization, of propagating nations. 

This process is very simple — silent, indeed, like all the great 
forces of nature, but like them, also, resistless and inevitable. 
He who taketh up the isles as a very little thing, who guides 
the destinies of nations and individuals, and sees the end from 
the beginning, manages the course of empire with infinite 
skill and works stupendous results. 

There lies, a few days' sail to the east of us, a land in the 
shadow of death. Centuries of darkness and despair have 
brooded over its inhabitants, who have obeyed the law oi de- 
praved humanity in going onward and downward in misery 
and sin, without the restraining influence of education or reli- 
gion. The suu shines there as on us, but there is no healing 
in his beams. The moon and stars look as lovingly on the 
mountains and rivers 

"Where Afric's sunny fountains 
Roll down their golden sands;" 

but moon and starlight is cold and brings no life to souls that 
are dead in sin. There man has gone down in the scale of 
being toward brutes that devour each other, till human life 
has ceased to be worth a straw and blood is cheaper than 
water. The mind staggers under the thought that there is a 
land, a continent, where the death of a chieftain is the signal 
for the sacrifice of scores of his fellow-men on his sepulchre! 
that there is a spot on this planet of ours where a woman is 
slaughtered more frequently than a calf, and so utterly extinct 
is the love of life and the principle of hope in the human 
breast, that the victim bleeds without a sigh and lies down to 
die as cheerfully as to a night's i*epose. 

Now, the point we make is just here and this, that such a 
land is over against us and at our doors. Go down to the sea- 
coast at summer time and listen to the sighing and mourning 
of the ocean as it breaks at your feet ; you call it, and, perhaps, 



it is, tho murmur of the sea; but it is more — those waves are 
freighted with the groans of a wretched race of your fellow- 
men, writhing and shrieking under the agonies of despair. 

Why is not our land to-day like that ? Our colonists were 
not Christians, all of them nor most of them. They were, in 
no sense, missionaries of the Gospel. They came to buy and 
sell and get gain, to find gold, to better their temporal state. 
The law that brought them here was the same that sends our 
colored friends to Africa; they could do better here than in 
Europe; our friends can do better there than here, and they 
go for themselves to have a fair chance, to be men, equal and 
noble, erect in the majesty of manhood, with the destinies of a 
Eepublic and a continent in their hands; its honorable respon- 
sibilities on their shoulders; its future to make and its rewards 
to win and wear. 

Going there they carry with them the principles and the ex- 
ample of Christian civilization. They are a light and power 
on the margin of a continent that is now the habitation of 
cruelty. We need not send statesmen, or philosophers, or 
preachers. We send civilized men and women of good moral 
character, and plant them there, and they are the germ of the 
seed that is to spring up into a tree, whose leaves are to heal 
the wounds of bleeding Africa and whose branches are to be 
the sheltering arms of a redeemed and blessed race. This was 
the result of colonization in Greece, in Italy, in England, in 
America. It will be in Africa; and the day of her redemption, 
thank God, is drawing nigh. 

But this is only an incidental result of your mighty scheme. 
I think angels would like to have a hand even in this. Our work 
is with the people of color here, to give them a settlement there, 
for their own good, if they want to go ! That is the idea: " with 
their own consent;" there is no compulsion about it; they can 
stay here if they like it better; there is no pressure, no con- 
straint, not so much as there was on the sailor who was asked 
if they were really compelled to go to prayers on the Cunard 
steamer on Sunday: "Why, no," he said, "not exactly com- 
pelled; but if we don't go they stop our grog." No; there is 
not so much as this; for their grog is more likely to be stopped 
if they go to Africa. But if they want to go, hero we are to 



help them with a God hless you, and a free passage, and six 
months' support, and a farm of their own, and a chance to be 
men of substance and influence and usefulness and honor, 
and to have a hand in the salvation of fatherland from pagan 
abomination and its exaltation to its place among the civilized 
races of the world. 

And I ask, in the name of liberty — that dear, old, glorious^ 
and greatly abused word — I ask, in the name of liberty and 
humanity and of God, the Father of us all, if an American- 
born citizen, whose liberty was just now bought for him, 
at the cost of half a million of white men's lives and a 
debt of $3,000,000,000, has not the right of going where he 
pleases and staying there? We have settled that principle 
with Britain and Germany. Have we not, also, settled it 
for ourselves? If the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, may 
he not, at least, change his spots? If he does not like one 
spot, may he not go to another? And rights and duties are 
reciprocal, never conflicting. If it is his right and privilege to 
go, it is our duty and privilege to help him. There was no 
lack of Emigrant Aid Societies to help men to go to bleeding- 
Kansas when she stretched forth her hands for aid. I found 
Emigrant Aid Societies in Germany and Switzerland and Ire- 
land. It is the noblest philanthropy that helps those who help 
themselves. And when the fire from Heaven has entered into 
the soul of an African in any part of the world, and he is long- 
ing to return to the land of his sires to kindle the flame of 
pm*e worship on altars long since cold and fallen, there is the 
man whom I would take by the hand and lead him to the ship 
and say : " This is the way to save thyself and thy fatherland ; 
go, and the Lord be with thee!" 

Coming home from Egypt some years ago across the Medi- 
terranean sea, I was on shipboard with a hundred negro boys, 
who had been bought in the interior of Africa and brought 
down the Nile to Cairo and Alexandria, and were now being 
taken to Italy by their purchasers. Who and for what? They 
were bought by Eoman Catholic missionaries, who were taking 
them to Italy to teach them the Christian religion, that they 
might return to Africa and convert their countrymen. A 
mistaken charity, perhaps; not the wisest way to do good, but 



6 

well meant and noble in its purpose. It is a better way this 
of onrs, that takes these men ami women, whose fathers and 
mothers were torn from Africa, and sends them back with 
knowledge of the arts of civilized life, and the way of higher 
life through Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life Him- 
self. These are the instruments by which other lands have 
been enlightened; they may be the salvation of Africa. 

1 would not put the pressure of a- straw upon any man to 
change his country or his clime. I go in for the largest liberty 
of choice, and claim it for myself and my colored friends. They 
are rational and intelligent; if they are not, we do not watit them 
for colonists ; but with reason and knowledge, they are not 
blind to the inevitable facts of the future that stare them in 
the face as to the destiny of this continent of ours. It is for 
the Anglo-Saxon race. The Celtic, the Teutonic, the Chinese, 
any or all races may come here; but they come into the Ameri- 
can crucible, melting them all into one, and the Anglo-Saxon, 
the dominant power in the country and the world, is to be the 
ruling force in the land. It requires no prejudice of color to 
make one believe that no such amalgam can be or should be 
with the African race. Its effects are too palpable in the laws 
of race to permit them to be ignored or despised ; and it is the 
last and lowest prejudice that shuts the mind against the evi- 
dence, and promises to the African what he never can have in 
Europe or America. 

Mr. President, when will philanthropy rise to the grandeur 
of its origin? — the divine love of man; love of the human race; 
love that worketh no ill to his neighbor; love that knows no 
bounds of continent, country, or color; love that recognizes 
every man as a brother, for whom every brother is bound to 
labor and pray. Such philanthropy, broad as the world and 
boundless as the sea, abjures that policy that forbids labor to 
go where it can do the best for itself; that would forever keep 
the poor poor, that the rich may be richer; that would doom 
a whole race of free colored people to a life of menial toil and 
to wasting generations of dependence, when Cod in his wonder- 
working Providence has brought them up out of the wilder- 
ness, opened the way for them through the Red Sea of blood, 
and shown to them, as from Pisgah's summit, the promised 



land, where every man may be a- sovereign, an independent 
freehold farmer, with competence, comfort, and usefulness 
which is the highest glory and the chief* end of man. 

I see in this assembly a venerable man, who gave the vigor 
of his youth and early manhood and the wisdom of his riper 
years to this scheme of Christian philanthropy, and whose 
name will be enrolled with Mills and Ashmun, as one whose 
life has been nobly given to African Colonization. A year 
ago, for the third time, he went to Liberia to see the rising 
fortunes of the youthful empire, planted and watered there by 
him and his associates in this glorious work. I hold in my 
hand and will read a few of the words of welcome to our 
illustrious Clurley by a colored colonist, speaking for himself 
and his coloi'ed brethren there — 

"Among the early and tried friends of Liberia the name of 
'Ralph E. Gurley stands prominent, and we, venerable and 
reverend sir, sa} 7 , in the fullness of our hearts, w 7 e thank you. 
The palms that have sprung up in every direction and yield 
rivers of oil, that invite the merchant fleet of legitimate trades 
that you see in our harbors, thank you. No longer do the hell- 
hounds of the devil — the slave-traders — infest our coasts and 
strip Africa of her sons and daughters; no more do the tribes 
on this coast shudder to see a white man. Their smiling faces 
thank you. Slave barracoons are no more to be seen ; they 
are numbered with the things that have passed. But churches 
of the living God, with their steeples pointing heavenward, 
houses of respectable dimensions and architectural by con- 
struction, that would not disgrace any city of Christendom, 
rise up and thank you. Schools and colleges, halls of justice, 
and executive mansion and departments, swell the number 
and cry aloud we thank you. The influx of emigrants, who hail 
this as the promised land, and the Ethiopian in the far interior, 
as they catch the sound from us and our children, will continue 
to cry we thank you." 

That is eloquence, negro eloquence, exulting in freedom, in- 
telligence, and power. It speaks of a rising race, with the 
destinies of empire in its hand ! 

O, sir, how bitter the selfishness that meets the African and 



scoffs at his aspirations for a home and name on his ancestral 
shores and among- his fathers' sepulchres, and bids him stay 
here and work out his uncertain destiny, the bone of conten- 
tion between the dogs of party, picked and gnawed in turns 
by both, and abandoned to the chances of a future always 
against the weak and in favor of the strong! 

There is a higher, nobler, sweeter love than this. It was born 
of God. It made Jesus our brother, partaker of our humanity, 
and the redeemer of mankind, giving Himself an example and 
sacrifice for the Jew and the gentile, the Asian and African, 
for you and me. It is radiant with light divine and warm with 
angelic fire. It saith to the sons and daughters of that land 
of palms: stay here, if you will, and work out for yourselves 
the old, old problem, a life-struggle for a living on the earth; 
but if you come with us, we will do you good; Ave will show 
you a better way; we have a land of liberty, Liberia is its 
tuneful name, your fatherland, all yours, with its schools, its 
college, its halls of legislation, its seats of power, its happy 
homes, where plenty crowns the board, and joy dwells a con- 
stant guest with peace. 

This is the work of the Society we serve and celebrate to- 
night. It is a God-like work; it blesses two continents ; it is 
the almoner of mercies to those who go and those to whom 
they go; it is pure philanthropy, blessing those who give and 

those who receive; it is good, only good owned of God, 

with its record on earth and on high. 



Emancipation and Restoration to their Fatherland. 



CORRELATE DUTIES 



PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES 



DESCENDANTS OF COLORED PEOPLE 



I>ESIRING TO BK 



COLONISTS IN AFRICA. 



J^JST .A-IDIDreiESS 



BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 

JANUARY 20, 1874. 
By GEORGE W. SAMSON, D. D., of New York. 



WASHINGTON CITY: 

M'GILL & WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 

1874. 

uM i nnn i mn i mini i rrTTT^ m il rTTTTTTTm nuimi i MHiinii 



ADDRESS. 



All human enterprises which result in great and permanent 
blessiDgs to mankind begin in the feeble and limited efforts of 
a few men ; they are prompted by convictions that take hold 
on deep principles of truth and right, which only a few minds 
of mature experience and free from personal ambition fully 
conceive; their full and comprehensive operation is retarded 
often for generations by the imperfect views and selfish spirit 
common to fallen human nature; but at length they triumph 
over every obstacle and command the admiration and support 
of nations and ages. 

Such an enterprise is that of the colonization of the African Con- 
tinent by the descendants of its people, brought two centuries 
ago to the eastern shore of .North America. It is the world's 
latest and completest development of the law that emancipa- 
tion of enslaved captives is necessarily coupled with the duty 
of their restoration to the land of their nativity. This duty, 
whether the enslaved be a captive taken in war or a bondman 
forced to labor, grows out of three relations universally re- 
cognized among mankind as of binding force : first, the right 
of the enslaved to theuse of the powers God has given him in 
the home where God placed him; second, the claim set up by 
nations having the power to enforce it; and third, the united 
convictions of duty and interest which finally compel the cap- 
tor and master to acknowledge this right and to yield to its 
demand. 

The law of duty is drawn from the record of what men have 
thought and done in all ages of human history; and especially 
in primitive and simple times. All great writers on law and 
jurisprudence, from Solon to Blackstone, go back alike to Ho- 
mer and Moses for precedents; to the one because the fiction 
is reality, being but a picture of human impulses as they show 
themselves in the actual life of men ; the other because the 



faithful chronicle of one nation's experience is but a transcript 
of the principles ruling all nations. 

The principle of equity ruling individual and national duty 
to bond-servants among Asiatics is set forth in Jacob going 
back to his father with presents after a service of twenty 
years, and in the restoration of his descendants from centuries 
of bondage in Egypt, and afterwards in Assyria, when their 
masters, enriched by their labor, sent them back to their native 
land well provided for support in their settlement; and that 
universal law of recognized obligation is now seen in the stip- 
ulations of the Chinese, the Eussian, and other governments in 
Asia, that no subject of theirs shall be removed for foreign 
service without the guarantee of his return by the employer. 
That same principle, always and everywhere ruling European 
mind and action, is pictured in the inexorable law which com- 
pelled the final restoration of the captive Helen to her Grecian 
lord, as it more quickly prompted the return of Briseis with 
gifts to her Trojan sire; and this law of inseparable connection 
between emancipation and restoration is still read in the de- 
mand on Turkey bj T the Allied Western Powers that the 
Greeks, after four centuries of bondage, should be restored 
both to their freedom and their property rights; it is now 
pending in the claim of both England and the United States 
as to the very doubtful case of the Virginius captives; and it is 
read in the order from the Italian Government, this morning 
published at New York, that children brought to this country 
by Italian padroni shall be returned before the 15th May to 
their homes at the cost of their masters. 

The point for our consideration to-night is, that this princi- 
ple is not only binding, but it has been specially recognized as 
still holding between enlightened and prospered America and 
benighted and down-trodden Africa. It is our privilege and 
pride to hail the fact that, in the entire history of our Ameri- 
can nation, this principle has been both recognized and con- 
trolling; and that the American Colonization Society is its 
noble monument. 

It should be always borne in mind in any survey of what 
men and nations have said and done, that our Divine Euler 
and Eedeemer has himself linked the impulses of interest and 



duty indissolubly in man's nature; and He means that they 
shall never be severed in the noblest human endeavor, not 
even in the moral redemption of man. The very law of Heaven 
is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" the stimulus to 
Christian enterprise from the Divine Master's own lip is "an 
hundred-fold in this world" to him who "forsakes all" to pro- 
mote His cause; human interests, individual and national, 
are legitimate appeals to engage in Christian enterprise; com- 
merce is generally the pioneer of Christian missions; and no 
intelligent mind could have full confidence in the Colonization 
of Africa by restored natives if in every stage of its progress 
these divinely linked impulses of interest and duty were not 
found to be combined in the acts and words of the three par- 
ties concerned: the American whites who send the emigrants, 
the emigrants themselves who go, and the people of Liberia 
and of the African Continent who urge their claim to colo- 
nists. 

The su^irestions which have led to African colonization can 
be traced far back into the history of the American Colonies 
and of the infant nation; and it is worthy of remark that in 
each step taken American sentiment leads and British phi- 
lanthropy follows; while both act from interest as well as 
from duty. 

In August, 1773, before the American war, prompted by the 
desire of some young African slaves to return to their native 
land as Christian missionaries, Dr. Ezra Stiles, of Newport, 
K L, afterwards President of Yale College, joined by the cel- 
ebrated theologian, Dr. Samuel Hopkins, wrote an address on 
the iniquity of the slave-trade, and proposed the education and 
sending out of these African youth as " the least compensation 
we are able to make to the poor Africans for the injuries they 
are constantly receiving from this unrighteous practice;" to 
which address responses came in the form of pecuniary con- 
tributions both from Scotland and New England. In 1787, the 
same year that the United States Constitution declared that 
the slave-trade should cease after twenty-one years, Dr. Wil- 
liam Thornton published an address to the free people of 
color in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, proposing to become 
the leader of a colony to be settled on the West Coast of Africa. 



Shortly after Dr. Hopkins corresponded with Granville Sharpe, 
of England, making a kindred suggestion; and in 1792, five 
years later, the Government of Great Britain at great expense 
transported the negroes captured in the American States dur- 
ing the war of Independence, who had been temporarily sup- 
ported in Canada, to the new territory obtained for them at 
Sierra Leone, on the West Coast of Africa. From this day 
the duty of restoring at public expense the descendants of 
African captives to their native land becomes a controlling 
sentiment; which sentiment has not died out from the Ameri- 
can breast, and cannot now be stifled except from a mistaken 
view of the interests and obligations involved. 

England, led as America was to be, by united interest and 
duty, now enters the arena of active enterprise in paying her 
debt to Africa. The independence of America, cutting England 
off from a market in the Western World for her manufactures, 
turned the attention of our worthy ancestors to the East; 
bringing to her, also to both Asia and Africa, a blessing which 
a century ago no one dreamed of. For two centuries, from 
A. D. 1600, the English East India trading enterprise had been 
secondary to the American colonial; and the supply posts she 
had planted on the Western and Southern Coast of Africa had 
been but of temporary consideration. Now, however, that 
very Cornwallis who lost prestige at Yorktown was called to 
retrieve his honor in India. Soon extended territory in South- 
ern and Eastern Asia, and in Western, Southern, and Eastern 
Africa, were gained by Great Britain for commercial purposes; 
and highways were opened along which English and American 
missionaries, with their wives and children, were seen pressing, 
their concord never disturbed even by the war of 1812. Fol- 
lowing America, successive acts of the British Parliament in 
1805, 1807, 1811, and 1824 were passed making the slave-trade 
first to have a limit, then to be a felony, and last to be piracy. 
Following again the Northern -States, after many years Great 
Britain in 1834 abolished slavery in her West India Colonies; 
paying, however, 8100,000,000 as remuneration to the owners. 
-To plant and sustain the Colony of Sierra Leone England ex- 
pended in 1801 about §116,000, and in 1802 made an appropri- 
tion of 850,000 over and above the employ of her national ves- 
sels for transportation. 



The field of movement now shifts to America. In 1S00 Vir- 
ginia, filled with free negroes by the humane acts of Washing- 
ton and kindred spirits in emancipating their slaves, began to 
discuss the question of an asylum for them; and Monroe, then 
Governor of Virginia, and Jefferson, President of the United 
States, were enlisted. Interest, indeed, but mutual interest, 
that of the whites and blacks, met and mingled with deep con- 
victions of duty. The Northwestern Territory, made free by 
Virginia's own act only thirteen years previous, was suggested 
as that asylum; but the humanity of those true friends of the 
colored people forbade the selection of a home so inclement 
and so exposed to white aggression, especially from the French 
Canadians. Under date of December 27, 1804, Mi*. Jefferson 
suggested their incorporation with the English Colony of Si- 
erra Leone, since the British Government had proposed to 
deliver up this Colony to home rule. Under date, again, of 
January 21, 1811, after he had ceased to be President, Mr. Jef- 
ferson, replying to an appeal of an Association of Friends who 
were urging from humanity African colonization, refers to 
his former suggestion as to Sierra Leone, against which objec- 
tion had arisen,, and adds: "You inquire whether I would use 
my endeavor to procure such an establishment, secure against 
violence from other powers, and particularly from the French? 
Certainly I shall be willing to do anything I can to give it 
effect and safety. * * * Nothing is more to be wished 
than that the United States themselves would undertake to 
make such an establishment on the Coast of Africa." Mr. 
Jefferson's suggestion as to Sierra Leone, he states, arose from 
the fact that the Colony was mainly made up of " fugitives 
from these States during the Eevolutionary war;" and the ob- 
ligation of the State of Virginia and of the United States to 
make pecuniary appropriation for this purpose admits no dis- 
cussion in the mind of this strict constructionist. 

The era for the rfse of the American Colonization Society 
had now dawned. At the meeting for its organization, De- 
cember 21st, 1816, Hon. Henry Clay, in an opening address, 
referred to three interests it sought to promote : first, that of 
the colored people; second, that of the whites of America; and 
he added as a third, " the moral fitness of restoring to the 



6 

land of their fathers" these exiles, since, said he, "if we can 
thus transmit to Africa the blessings of our arts, of our civili- 
zation, and our religion, may we not hope that America will 
extinguish a great portion of that moral debt which she has 
contracted to that unfortunate Continent?" He cited the Col- 
ony of Sierra Leone, planted by England, as an example both 
of the principle and of the promise for its fulfillment. Mr. 
Caldwell, who followed, referring to the expense which would 
necessarily attend it, said that there could hardly be a dif- 
ference of opinion as to the fact that every section of the 
United States was alike interested and indebted ; that it was 
"a great national object and ought to be supported by the na- 
tional purse ;" since, as Mr. Clay had declared, " there ought 
to be a national atonement for the wrongs and injuries which 
Africa had received." 

The memorial sent, in accoi-dance with this view, to Con- 
gress, was responded to by a report closing with two resolu- 
tions, which contained the following recommendation : that 
stipulations be obtained from Great Britain and other maritime 
powers, both for the suppression of the slave-trade, and also 
"guaranteeing a permanent neutrality for any colony of free 
people of color, which, at the expense and under the auspices of 
the United States, shall be established on the African Coast;" 
to which was added, " Resolved, That adequate provision should 
be hereafter made to defray any necessary expenses which 
may be incurred in carrying the preceding resolution into 
effect." After some delay, from pressure of other business, 
Congress, on the 3d March, 1819, appointed an agent on the 
Coast of Africa to receive and colonize rccaptives taken in 
slave ships. The sloop-of-war Cyane, with a merchant ship 
in convoy, and subsequently several vessels of war, were at 
the public expense employed in this service of national obli- 
gation. As it was now apparent that ;* nucleus of trained 
negroes was essential to the colony, who might be instructors 
and supporters of the almost helpless l'ecaptives, Mr. Monroe 
interpreted the law just passed by Congress as necessitating 
the sending of select American negroes liberated by philan- 
thropic masters for this mission, and also as providing for the 
buying of lands and the furnishing of other supplies necessary; 



and thus in its equity the United States began to act on the 
principle of duty recognized in other lands and ages. 

Eight years after this, in 1829, when twelve State Legisla- 
tures had united in commending the Colonization enterprise, 
Hon. Henry Clay addressed the Society of his adopted State, 
Kentucky, in that masterly speech of more than an hour in 
length, which did more than any single effort ever made to 
bring our country to view rightly the question of slave-eman- 
cipation as a moral law which was inevitably sooner or later 
to rule; while, too, the same speech gave the clear forecast of 
the provision for the emancipated which, sooner or later, our 
nation must make, or suffer the penalty of violated law. He 
refers to the fact that, in the council of diplomats assembled at 
Ghent, to form the treaty which fixed the relation of the new 
American States to the various States of Europe, a British 
jurist admitted the superior fidelity shown by the American 
States toward weak and dependent Indian tribes and African 
slaves; their acts, both before and after their independence, 
standing out in striking contrast to the course not only of 
Spain and France but even of England herself. He dwelt on 
the fact that as soon as they had the power, they carried out 
in good faith their remonstrances with the mother country 
against the slave-trade; providing in their very Constitution 
for its cessation as soon as previous British property guaran- 
tees to investments made in the traffic could be legally can- 
celed. He argued that the humanity which controlled the 
mass of slaveholders not only permitted but encouraged manu- 
mission and provision for emancipated slaves; and declared 
that the day was not distant when interest and duty would 
unite to secure universal emancipation. He showed that the 
competition of white labor, which had driven the colored peo- 
ple of all the free States into obscurity, was now acting in 
Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky; and that humanity as well 
as national indebtedness demanded the most studious consid- 
eration on the part of American statesmen as to their future 
provision. He pointed to the recognition of this duty wit- 
nessed in churches, especially among Christian women, but also 
in the acts of the Legislatures of more than half of the States of 
the Union and in the enrollment among the members of the 



8 

Colonization Society of " some of the most distinguished men 
of our country in its legislative, executive, and judicial coun- 
cils." He urged that nothing but the substitution of white 
for colored laborers in the Southern States would give them 
the prosperity of the North; that the return of the exiles of 
Africa, properly trained and provided, would bring the blessings 
of peace, prosperity and happiness to the teeming populations 
of two continents; with the union of freedom and republi- 
can institutions as a heritage to millions of their descend- 
ants. He hailed the enterprise as the fulfillment of the mission 
of the World's Eedeemer and of the aspirations of his ardent and 
pious disciples to regenerate the two continents still left in 
heathenism. As to the expense incurred, he showed from 
careful estimates that one million of dollars applied annually 
for sixty or seventy years, less than $75,000,000, paid as a na- 
tional debt, would restore all the exiles to the land of their 
ancestry. Such a strain of eloquence has seldom fallen from 
the lips of any orator of ancient or modern times; such a 
tracing of the moral law of duty could never have been 
resisted, except by selfish cupidity, in any age; every point of 
its great argument has been intensified in each succeeding de- 
cade of American history since; if listened to in the day of its 
utterance, the words of Him who spake as never man spake 
would have been verified to the very letter, that the man and 
the nation true to God's law of righteousness towards the cap- 
tive "shall receive an hundred-fold " for his fidelity; and if now, 
when that hundred-fold has been entered on the other side of 
the balance-sheet, and has been more than paid in the expense 
of the late war — if our nation and its people determine to do 
the duty that must be met towards the freed people of our 
country, they may save tho generations soon to struggle for 
the mastery in the competition for life on our continent — they 
rnaj- save this last refuge of the needy — another accummulation 
of a debt that at a hundred per cent, of annually accruing in- 
crease must some day be fully paid. With a single allusion to 
the concurrent testimony of other statesmen of that day, we 
may pass to a glance at the proof of this still pending event 
revealed to the forecast of that generation of great men and 
of devoted lovers of their country and of the world. 



Two years only after this speech of Mr. Clay, when his 
spirit, though a southern man, was awakening a counterpart 
in South Carolina nullification, at the annual meeting of the 
Colonization Society, held at Washington, and crowded by 
members from both Houses of Congress, letters from both ex- 
President Madison and Chief Justice Marshall were read. Mr. 
Madison, with pen tremulous with age, wrote: "The Society 
had alwa3 T s my good wishes;" and after stating the difficul- 
ties in its accomplishment, he meets the chief obstacle to colo- 
nization, the attendant expense, with a suggestion worthy of 
the State as well as of the nation which had so worthily hon- 
ored him; in which suggestion the philanthropist towers above 
even the patriot, and yet much more above the sectionalist 
and the political bigot. "In contemplating," writes he, "the 
pecuniary resources needed for the removal of such a number 
to so great a distance, my thoughts and hopes have been long 
turned to the rich fund presented in the western lands of the 
nation ; which will soon entirely cease to be ours, under a 
pledge for another object. The great object in question is 
truly of a national character; and it is known that distin- 
guished patriots, not dwelling in slaveholding States, have 
viewed the object in that light, and would be. willing to let the 
national domain be a resource in effecting it. Should it be 
remarked that the States, though all may be interested in 
relieving our country from the colored population, are not 
equally so, it is but fair to recollect that the sections most to 
be benefitted are those whose cessions created the fund to be 
disposed of." Chief Justice Marshall's letter, by a marked law 
of common sentiment called forth at a common ci'isis, makes the 
same suggestion as to the public lands first made by Senator 
King, of New York, whom Madison, amid the spirit of nulli- 
fication, calls a, "distinguished patriot;" he says that this 
fund, ceded to the General Government without restriction as 
to its use b}^ different States and chiefly by Virginia, is less 
exposed to those constitutional objections which are made in 
the South;" and he concludes, as one inspired by the experi- 
ence of 1832, with a vision of the scenes of 1862 : " The whole 
Union would be strengthened by this act and be relieved from 
a danger whose extent can scarcely be estimated." 



10 

Forty years have passed since Madison and Marshall thus 
wrote and when Clay spoke for the ages with almost inspired 
forecast. And to-day how stand the three parties who in all 
ages have agreed that an emancipated captive must be restored 
with gifts, or the offended deity, the lawgiver of justice and 
equity, will not be appeased! 

Let us glance a moment, first, at the white race, -holding 
with tenacious grasp the soil, the foundation of all individ- 
ual and national wealth; which the red man, appealing to 
Heaven, declares was his by ancestral heritage; and which the 
black man, since the war, has veril}'' believed was to be por- 
tioned out among the race that had for two centuries tilled it 
for usurping landlords. He who sits above has demanded, as 
of the Trojan heroes refusing to agree in surrendering a stolen 
captive, hecatombs of human sacrifices, not less than one mil- 
lion of America's choice sons, two-thirds of them from the States 
that least recognized the debt which fathers impose on the 
estates they bequeath. He has exacted in the war expendi- 
ture an hundred-fold of the sum asked for by Mr. Clay thirty 
years before as adequate both for the emancipation and the 
return of the captives; and He has yet more cut off from our 
land, our ports, our ocean commerce, by an indirect tax, not 
recognized by human tribunals, but by a higher law extorted, 
a thousandfold more than the sum contemplated by the states- 
men of 1832. And now into our States come pouring literally 
hordes of the Old World, swarming our States, Massachusetts 
and South Carolina alike, as the Goths over Italy, ruling New 
York, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis as Attica and Alaric 
and Theodoric dominated Rome; and who supposes that this 
mass can be ruled by equity; aye more, that new lords may 
not seize on our inheritance, when equity towards the black 
man is not shown ! We may well take up the warnings of 
both Madison and Jefferson, of Clay and Jackson, in 1832; for 
the utterances of those aged statesmen of the past century are 
not to be treated as the excited imaginations of a moment! 
T hey were the calm, compelled counsels of the truest friends 
of humanity when about to meet their own account as Ameri- 
can leaders. 

The second vital consideration, then, is, " What is justice and 



11 

equity to the colored race?" Three home proffers have been 
made ! Have they brought the relief needed ? 

The first promised was homesteads. Gen. Patrick, the first 
Provost Marshal General of Virginia, a devout Christian of the 
Presbyterian church, as well as an able and spotless com- 
mander during the war, was obliged to restrain, by force, mis- 
taken friends alike of the colored man and of their country, 
Who told the people just freed alike from slavery and from 
military control, that their master's lands were to be divided 
up among them, and that the Government would provide 
them mules and implements for farming. Not the first acre 
has yet been given them; and no man in our country be- 
lieves this would either be for the colored man's interest or 
justice to the white population; unless it be a revival of the 
idea of 1832 — the devotion of the lands now lavished in rail- 
road grants, to the furnishing of African colonists as payment 
of the national debt long due to them ! 

Then labor was proffered ; and with promises of a propor- 
tion of the crops, a large portion of the colored people went 
confidently to their toil. But crops failed, necessarily; for the 
soil was exhausted; the laborer was unsteady and unskilled; 
two or three years impoverished proprietors and left laborers 
to starve; and all Government could do was to provide trans- 
portation to new and remote lands far south. 

Then came the ballot, eligibility to office, and the Civil-rights 
Bill, upon which we will not dwell. 

Turning now to Africa, what opens before us ! How won- 
derful the changes the last twenty-five years have wrought; 
as if to prepare that continent to be the mission-field, the land 
of promise, the Caanan of rest to this weary, jostled, outrun 
and dispirited people. Herodotus tells us of an Egyptian col- 
ony sent into Ethiopia, whose influence so advanced them 
that they at length made an effectual conquest of Upper Egypt, 
where, in the city of Thebes, they for some generations took 
on Asiatic culture; and Bunsen has indicated that this was the 
very era when David wrote, " Ethiopia shall soon stretch her 
hands unto God." Strabo, four centuries later, tells how Greek 
youth of Cyrene trained themselves for years to explore suc- 
cessfully the upper waters of the Nile ; modern readers of Liv. 



12 

ingstone's researches can compare the records and see that 
the ancient explorer passed over the track of the modern 
pioneer; Ptolemy's map, published a century after Christ, 
fixes the sources of the Nile just where Livingstone now 
places them, ten degrees south of the Equator; Grecian influ- 
ence so penetrated Central Africa that the Ethiopian treas- 
urer of Queen Candace, as Luke's record indicates, was reading 
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Isaiah; and the Greek 
language so influenced the dialects of the far interior as to 
appear in the vocabulary of the Yoruba people, living within 
the bosom of the Niger, as the late Smithsonian publication 
plainly indicates. Ten or twelve centuries yet later, the Ara- 
bian followers of Mohammed penetrated from the Indian 
Ocean to the Atlantic, south of the Great Desert; and so effec- 
tually have they impressed their religious convictions, that 
amulets containing passages from the Koran are found on tho 
necks of slaves carried to South America from the Western 
Coast of Africa. 

Three forms of ancient civilization have thus found the 
African mind susceptible to their impress. It remains to ask 
whether another, and that a far higher, may not take its 
place. 

Twenty-five years ago the encroachments of Persia and of 
Russia towards India began to give serious fears to English 
statesmen and merchants that the day might be hastened 
when India would be entered from both the West and the 
North, and when Great Britain's monopoly of its trade would 
come to an end. From that day, as not only her open acts 
but the confidential intimations of her agents have declared, 
the Continent of Africa has been singled out as the field of her 
explorations and of her intended futui*e commerce. The set- 
tlement at Cape Coast Castle, on the south, has extended far 
up tho Eastern Coast to Natal, and even to Zanzibar, and back 
into the interior to the diamond mines. From the Strait at 
the mouth of the Red Sea, British exploring agents excited 
the jealousy of Abyssinia; till six years ago the Abyssinian 
war made the road to the interior, through that Christian 
kingdom, a highway for English merchants. Within a few 
years, the island of Lagos, nigh the mouth of the Niger, was 



13 

seized ; and since that time loans from British capitalists to Li- 
beria for roads to the interior indicate a policy leading to a mon- 
opoly of the commerce of Africa from that side. About five years 
ago. after the persevering interior explorations of the missionary 
Livingstone, followed by scientific and military leaders like 
Barth, Speke, and Baker, the latter, Sir Samuel Baker, with his 
wife and an armed escort of 1,500 Egyptian soldiers, bearing 
on the backs of bullocks three river steamers, whose parts were 
to be put together on the Nile above all obstructions, whence 
the inland lakes could be entered, has successfully planted a 
central commercial and military settlement, whence i"oads will 
be kept open to the Mediterranean on the North, to the Red 
Sea on the East, to the Atlantic on the West, and to Natal, if 
not Cape Coast, on the South. The last act of this concen- 
trated conquest is now proceeding in the invasion of the ter- 
ritory of the Ashantees, whose subjugation will be the prelude 
to the submission of all the interior tribes. 

And what inevitably must succeed to this commercial occu- 
pation ? Unquestionably, just as from India after British 
occupation came a cry that reached England as well as Amer- 
ica, and made Christian missionaries meet, even amid the war 
of 1812, as brothers in arms in a higher service, to herald 
Christ on " India's coral strand," so now from "Afric's sunny 
fountains" already comes the kindred call. What means it 
that Arthington was dreaming of an inland settlement back of 
Liberia, and that he sent to the American Colonization Soci- 
ety for choice Christian colored men to lead it ? Was the mind 
that penned that letter possessed by a fancy? or did a grand 
reality almost frenzy his appeal ? Which sees farthest, the self- 
sacrificing philanthropist or the interested man of the world, 
as to the colored man's lofty mission for the world, as well as 
his only hope for his family and kindred? Let two or three 
of their own number declare. 

In Richmond, Virginia, some twenty-five years ago, a mu- 
latto youth, of sprightly mind and liberal home-education, gifted 
as a herald of Christ, longed to go and preach to his country- 
men in Africa. His master gave him his freedom ; the Mission 
Society of his native South gave him a salary; the Coloniza- 
tion ship gi'anted him a passage; and for years he was an 



14 

efficient missionary in Liberia. When our civil war closed he 
came from Africa to visit his kindred, and to tell American 
freedmen of the land where they were not only freemen but 
nobles without rival; to pledge a farm to any family as the 
gift of the Liberian Government; and to thrill American 
Christians with the picture of spiritual harvest-fields ripe for 
the sickle, in the land where Eg}'ptian science; Grecian art, 
and Mohammedan superstition were to be supplanted by the 
pure Christian faith. The voice of Rev. Mr. Hill rang at a 
large public convention in New York with eloquence that sur- 
prised and captivated; for his theme had inspired the man. 
He came to the Executive Committee of the Colonization So- 
ciety at Washington, and on their behalf procured a passage 
to Liberia for an} 7 who would go. He was met by the roman- 
tic fancies of farms, and College education, and public offices, 
which dazzled the vision of his colored brethren. Towering 
like Moses before Israel when hesitating on the borders of 
Egypt, he exclaimed, "Be assured, in all that you are j^i^tJij 
receiving from the American people, you are only borrowing 
the jewels of j'our old masters to bear them to the laud of 
promise ! " Every day since that appeal the mist has dissipated 
that was before his hearers' eyes ; and now some of them see 
their mistake. 

Some thirty years ago a tall, swarthy, but high-browed Afri- 
can, whose grandfather was seized in the interior of Africa as 
a captive from a cultured tribe, was displaying in Kentucky 
great power as a Christian preacher. At his desire his owner 
gave him his freedom, and he went as a missionary to Liberia. 
He disappeared from the Colony for years; but early during 
the civil war found his wa}' back to America to rehearse his 
story and ask aid in his new work. Rev. Mr. Herndon had 
found his ancestral tribe; he had become a chief among them; 
he had won them to the Christian faith; he had allied them to 
the Liberian Republic; and now he sought means to rear a house 
of worship, with a Sabbath bell to ring forth its melod}- in a 
valley that never heard such music. He secured his desire ; 
he returned to his field ; and now he is at once Liberian judge 
in his district and a crier for the Judge of all the earth. 

Some six years since, Robert Arthington, of Leeds. Eng- 



15 

land, gave £1,000 sterling to plant a settlement of select 
Christian families, as the first of a cordon back of Liberia, 
which he hoped might some day girdle the continent. The 
chosen band were found in North Carolina and brought to- 
gether at Portsmouth. Va. At the farewell meeting their Chris- 
tian leader exclaimed, in his parting address, "Thank God for 
American slavery ! But for it I should have been born a 
heathen and could never have been Christ's herald to my 
countrymen in Africa." Just at that crisis the multiplying 
and earnest requests to be sent to Liberia led one of the Ex- 
ecutive Committee of the Colonization Society at Washington 
to urge their claim to Government transportation by land, if 
not on the sea, upon the members of the Senate and other 
officers of the Government, who had it in their power to pro- 
mote the claim. The appeal was met with the statement, " Oh ! 
we want these select people here as laborers and as voters! " 
The question was asked in reply and pressed home — " Senator, 
General, are you not liable to be as selfish as you thought the 
slaveholders were ten years ago ? " The appeal went home to 
Christian minds and American hearts! The train of facts pre- 
sented in this address of to-night led Senator Fessenden, lately 
Secretary of the Treasury and at that time Chairman of the 
Finance Committee of the Senate, to pledge himself as a leader 
in the effort to secure the same appropriation, $100 each, for 
the ocean passage of freedmen, which the Government for 
years had paid for recaptives sent to Liberia. His death 
shortly afterwards cut short this mission. 

During the administration of President Buchanan, a sla- 
ver, called the "Wanderer" ran into Savannah, Georgia, 
freighted with slaves captured from a superior tribe of trades- 
people in the interior of Africa. While the Secretary of the 
Navy was arranging for the return of these people to Africa, 
under the auspices of the Colonization Society, the people 
were scattered through the Gulf States. About ten years 
later, some six years ago, a missionary from Central Af- 
rica, Eev. Mr. Phillips, was addressing a large audience of 
colored people on the customs of the Yoruba people in 
Central Africa, when an unusual attention was observed 
in a cluster of finely formed, intelligent people, in the rear 



16 

of the house. To illustrate their language, the missionary- 
repeated the Lord's prayer in the Yoruba tongue ; when 
an irrepressible cry of delight came from this attentive band. 
At the close of the service they came pressing their way to 
the missionary, and in their native tongue told him the story 
of their capture, their dispersion at Savannah, and of their pres- 
ent freedom and their longing for home. He spoke of the 
Colonization Societ}^ ; and they begged that they might be sent 
to Africa. Their case was named; the funds of the Society, 
consecrated to pay the passage of emigrants to Liberia alone, 
was more than absorbed for such applicants; and these captives, 
now asking return under American law, are yet unredeemed! 
To whom does their restoration belong ! From whom is the pas- 
sage money back to Africa for any captive yet unrestored due, 
but from the entire American people! Is it not time, when 
philanthropic individuals are giving colleges and sugar mills, 
schools and tools to African colonists, and when Mission Socie- 
ties are sustaining heralds of the Gospel for Africa's redemp- 
tion, — is it not time for the American people and its Govern- 
ment to pay their honest debt, in giving transportation home 
to any applicant, and that charity be left to its appropriate 
work? 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



A.IST ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



JANUARY 18, 1876, 



BY 



Rev. Julius E. Grammer, D. D. 



WASHINGTON CITY: 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1876. 



ADDRESS. 



We meet to-night to hear the Fifty-Ninth Annual Keport of 
the American Colonization Society, The intensest interest at- 
taches to the occasion, because of the great difficulties which 
threaten the work of the Society. The years which have passed 
have brought their bui'den of duty, of care, and of blessing; 
and we doubt not that the same Divine Providence which has 
watched over the cradle of the enterprise will ever guard and 
guide it in the struggles of its youthful manhood. The war- 
cloud which so often burst in its fury upon the old monarchies 
of Europe has cast its portentous shadow upon the rising 
Republic of Liberia. The hand which guides the star over 
the dark cloud-rifts, and keeps it burning as a beacon to 
the mariner, will not suffer to expire that light which, on the 
distant Coast of Africa, has cheered and blessed so many thou- 
sands. Our trust is in God, and hence we first of all invoke 
His blessing and support. We pray that He would stay the 
tide of blood and send peace and good-will to shine on that 
scene of insurgent strife and bitter conflict. 

Shall we not, like the patriot orator of the American Revolu- 
tion, assure our hearts to-night, as he did then, when he said ; 
"Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty 
are invincible by any power. Besides, sir, a just God presides 
over the destiny of nations and He will raise up men to fight 
for us." The assurance gains strength, especially when we 
remember the spirit and the object which mark the effort of 
this Society and of that Republic. There was no array of con- 
tending authorities in the founding of this enterprise. There 
was no established government, whose yoke was to be broken : 
no prejudices and rights which were assailed and disputed. It 
was as when the land was given to the Father of the Jewish 
race, to choose where he would settle. Planting this colony 
upon the virgin soil, it was a root out of a dry ground. Watered 
by the tears of sympathetic charity and nurtured by the hand 



of patient toil, it has grown to prove that it is a tree of the 
Lord's planting. It sprang from the germ of generous phi- 
lanthropy. It was the outgrowth of a benevolence and love 
which, like that of St. Paul for the Jews, found its expression 
in his words; "my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, 
that they may be saved." Rescue, release, redemption, were 
the objects in view in founding Liberia; in launching the 
sacred argosy of the American Colonization cause. No armed 
soldiery confronted the rude people of that heathen shore; 
no menacing fleets were sent to strike terror to their hearts 
or conquer them by the weapons of a carnal warfare. The 
ship which bore Mills and Burgess, in 1817, was sent upon an 
errand not of conquest or invasion, but "to find and procure a 
location where a colony in Africa might be planted." 

The motives which have governed the friends and patrons 
of the cause, from its beginning, have been such as are worthy 
of the most enlightened statesmanship and the purest Chris- 
tian philanthropy. We can never too often repeat the words 
of Mr. Clay, its most eloquent advocate, who said, "There is 
a peculiar, a moral fitness in restoring the free people of color 
to the land of their fathers. And if, instead of the evils and 
sufferings which we have been the innocent cause of inflicting 
upon the inhabitants of Africa, we can transmit to her the 
blessings of our arts, our civilization, and our religion, may we 
not hope that America will extinguish a great portion of that 
moral debt which she has contracted to that unfortunate conti- 
nent?" The same sentiment is enforced by all the appeals of 
experienced statesmen, learned divines, and persuasive orators; 
the leading thought in the minds of Finley and Alexander, of 
Caldwell and Mercer, and of the most prominent men of the 
country, such as Monroe, and Clay, and Webster, was to devise 
some scheme by which this enslaved race might be educated in 
the principles of self-governmentand furnished with a home and 
country where their spirit and life might be blessed with the 
presence of Liberty and Eeligion. Can we doubt, then, that 
whatever obstacles or difficulties may for the time impede or 
embarrass the effort, that it will eventually be crowned with 
success? 

We have much to he thankful for. There is our heritage 



of names which have adorned the annals of this Society, and 
given its history a lustre of imperishable beauty. Around it 
have gathered the men who have been wise master-builders 
in the State and in the Church, and they have contributed to 
its treasury of their learning, their eloquence, and their wealth. 
Surely, it cannot be that such men whom we have named 
and those who still survive to plead this cause, have been 
mistaken. It cannot be that they were led away by a delusion, 
or a visionaiy fancy. They were not zealots or dupes. They 
spake in truth and soberness when they arose to say that this 
was " a great National object, and ought to be supported by 
the National purse," and that "there ought to be a National 
atonement for the wrongs and injuries which Africa had 
received." And certainly God will approve the motives and 
aims of all who cherish and further such an object. 

We have to be thankful for the success which has crowned the 
effort. It is not indeed as great as we could desire, but we 
are not to despise " the day of small things." Contrast the 
present with the past. Think of the time when this Society 
began its work. Then the slave-trade was followed on that 
Western Coast as it is now on the Eastern. Now six hundred 
miles of this Coast of Liberia has been redeemed from that 
fearful traffic. We see now the flag of a free Republic 
floating over more than twenty thousand freemen, who are 
entrusted with the liberty, the laws, and the religious priv- 
ileges of the most enlightened nation. We see that flag re- 
spected and recognized by the treaties of Great Britain, and 
America, and other Powers. We see the cheering spectacle of 
a Christian Republic, with its President and Legislature, its 
courts of justice, its schools and endowed college, its mission- 
aries and ministers of Christ, heralding "the old, old story" 
of the Gospel; we see all the appliances and agencies of an 
increasing and fast-maturing civilization. 

The young Republic has caught the spirit of her mother in 
America. The sea is vexed by the keels of her commerce, 
amounting in exports to several hundred thousand dollars. 
The press is multiplying as with the gift of tongues the mes- 
sages and the means of knowledge. Public schools are opened 
and all the incentives furnished for the highest and best forms 



6 

of human effort. " The school-master is abroad " there, and who 
shall limit his influence? We look at New England to-day 
with its libraries, universities, and fountains of sacred and 
classic literature, and behold a spectacle which may well 
challenge comparison with any in the world. The colony of 
Plymouth declared: "Forasmuch as the maintenance of good 
literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and 
flourishing state of societies and republics, this court doth 
therefore aver, that in whatever township in this government, 
consisting of fifty families or upwards, any meek man shall 
be obtained to teach a grammar school, such township shall 
allow at least twelve pounds, to be raised by rate on all the 
inhabitants." And why may we not hope for the same results 
with the qualifications only, which God's providence shall 
impose? 

Soon the steam train will send the echo of this advancing civ- 
ilization along the St. Paul's river and into the interior. Alreadj^ 
publications in Arabic have been sent there and received friendly 
response. The contrast which is afforded by the experiment 
of only a quarter of a century, in the history of that Republic 
is amazing and glorious. The forests, which echoed with the 
war-cry of savages, and the roaring of fierce beasts of prey, 
have given place to the smiling fields where grow the most 
luxuriant and beautiful fruits, and where are heard the sounds 
of the church-going bells and the songs of pious worshipers. 
Thriving towns and villages dot the scene. The air rings with 
the voices of happy laborers, and the signals of well-regulated 
industry. As we hold the picture before us of happy homes and 
a froc people, animated by the love of progress and advance- 
ment in all the elements of real prosperity, we may exclaim: 
"It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." It 
is easy to find fault and start objections, but who can dare to 
say, in view of what has been done and is now seen on that 
Coast as the result of this effort, that it is a failure? Indeed, 
it is wonderful that the reverses have not been greater and 
the discouragements more forbidding:. When the work was 
begun here, there were no such barriers to success, a few 
tribes of savages contested the field; but in Africa there were 



superstitions and idolatries as ancient as the race, and a vast 
population of surrounding heathen. 

The opinion of some persons is that there is no longer any 
necessity for this Society; that when slavery ended here its 
work was finished; and that it now becomes it to close its 
doors and hang out the badge of its funeral, as the result of 
the emancipation of four millions of enslaved Africans in the 
United States. But they who so object and reason surely err 
greatly. It never was the object of this Society to attain the 
emancipation of the slave here. There was nothing revolu- 
tionary of the law, or disruptive of the covenant, by which that 
dreadful evil was maintained here. It seeks (and never has 
sought anything else) but to colonize the free blacks of this 
country in Africa. It seeks by the aid of the philanthropist and 
the Christian, and as the Government and the States may aid, 
to furnish, all who are willing, the means to find a home, a coun- 
try, a destiny and future of usefulness such as they have never 
had. Said the lamented and devoted Ashmun : " Never per- 
haps, in the history of man, has an object, affording equal scope 
for the exercise of Christian benevolence, been found capable 
of engaging in its support such a compass and variety of pow- 
erful motives as that of the American Colonization Socie- 
ty." * And so far from occasioning any disaffection in 
the spirit or any intermission in the labor of the Society, 
the emancipation of the slave seems to be the signal inter- 
vention of Providence in its aid. By that wonderful event, 
accomplished at a cost of blood and treasure which can 
scarcely be told, we are compelled to meet the claims of the 
colored man as never before. It is a problem which the wisest 
and holiest of the Nation must study and solve. Slavery 
seemed to stand like an armed guard at every avenue of ap- 
proach for this work of colonizing, educating, and redeeming 
the race. But that stern sentinel is dead, and a wide and 
effectual door is opened. The chains are broken, and bitter 
indeed will be the reproach of that people, and blasting the 
awful condemnation upon us, if it be said that the last state 
of the African here was worse than the first. To save the 
Nation from that shame; to acquit the social conscience ; to 

*SeeLife,p. 61. 



8 

bless and ennoble the colored man, this Society, inspired by 
the spirit of a true missionary zeal, and yearning to extend to 
him the liberty, the civilization, and the Christianity of Amer- 
ica, pursues its work. To use the language of Ashmun, "the 
beneficial consequences of its success gradually unfold to the 
mind, on a rational investigation of its nature, and may 
be traced up to the highest pitch of moral magnificence." * 

And if any one is not fully persuaded in his own mind as to 
the claims of this cause, let him ask himself, "what shall he 
done with the African in America?" It is clear that he can 
never live here, as the Celt and the German, marrying and 
intermarrying with the Saxon. God has ordered the exist- 
ence of separate races, and He seems to have written it upon 
the heart of the American, as He did in the laws of the Jews, 
that, as to this colored race, "thou shalt not take to thyself a 
wife of the daughters of Ham." The result of the emancipation 
here, and a very happy one we think, is, that there are fewer 
mulattoes; and the race in becoming purer in life are becom- 
ing darker in complexion — I might say, in being freed, they 
aro being naturalized. Liberty has tended to separate them 
more and more distinctly in race, in idiosyncrasy, and in des- 
tiny. It commends itself to the social conscience; it is in 
accordance with the historic analogies of the Castilians and 
the Moors; of the Brahmins and the Chinese; of the Egyptians 
and the Jews; and it is suggested to us by the experience of 
all successful colonization and missionary enterprise, that the 
African should have his own schools and teachers ; his own 
churches and ministei-s; his own country, liberty, literature, 
laws, and religion, as they are peculiar to every civilized and 
Christian nation upon the globe. 

It has not been the policy of our Government to establish 
colonial dependencies, and the Society does not seek to alter 
it. But is it not reasonable to hope that the people, who owe 
such a debt to Africa; who have with other nations so wronged 
her, would, at least, see that she is protected under the treaties 
of the Liberian JFtepublic; and, in the name of common justice, 
in those rights of trade, of self-government, and of peaceful 
industry which will advance the general weal of her people 

*See Life, p. 61. 



9 

and contribute to the common good of mankind? Greece 
planted her colonies for defense and as a measure of self- 
preservation against the dangers of overgrown populations. 
Eome filled the world with her colonial settlements that she 
might have military strongholds, and extend her dominion 
from India to Britain. England has swollen her treasury with 
the revenues of her rich colonies and her commerce, which 
circles the globe. And would it not be worthy this great Re- 
public to guarantee at least a Protectorate to Liberia, with the 
sole object of perpetuating the blessings of constitutional lib- 
erty and the saving benefits of the Christian religion ? Could 
not this Government, to use the language of Professor Crum- 
mell, extend "those monetary helps and assistances, and that 
naval guardianship, which would enable (them) us to com- 
mence a greater work of interior civilization, by the means of 
roads, model farms, and manual-labor schools, with the definite 
condition that (our) their internal econonry and (our) their 
full natural functions should remain intact and undisturbed?"* 
William Pitt said : " We may live to behold the natives of 
Africa engaged in the calm occupation of industry and in the 
pursuit of a just and legitimate commerce ; we may behold the 
beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, 
which at some happier period, in still later times, may blaze 
with full lustre, and joining that influence to that of pure 
religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant ex- 
tremes of that immense continent." 

Shall not America contribute towards the fulfillment of so 
glorious a prediction ? Shall not our commerce become the 
ally of our religion and open the way for the more rapid exten- 
sion of that kingdom which is righteousness and peace? 

The indications of Providence are surely a guide to us in this 
effort. Baker and Livingstone and Stanley have rendered a 
service in their explorations of that continent which are among 
the most valuable aids to modern discovery. They reveal the 
resources of the undeveloped soil and the treasures of a com- 
merce, which, if rightly employed, would more than repay any 
expenditure made for colonization. 

* Address of Rev. A. Crummell, 1^70, p. 9. 



10 

Besides, the history of the Republic of Liberia presents a 
striking contrast to the failures in Spain, and even France, in 
their attempt at a similar form of government. These civ- 
ilized powers have become so fixed in the associations and 
forms of monarchical rule, that it seems almost impossible 
for them to attain any other permanent government. The 
absolutisms of the past have unfitted them for the experiment 
which they are seeking to accomplish in a moment. A Re- 
public must grow, and cannot be made. It must grow out of 
the exigencies and circumstances of a people. It must rest 
upon the ground-work of History. Aud it would be contrary 
to all analogy and to the plainest principles of political economy 
to expect ever to see such a government as ours in the midst 
of Europe. The Swiss Commonwealth has the basis of free 
local institutions. She has an ancient ground-work. The 
superstructure grew from the elements which were formed in 
the local institutions. The form of the executive is republican 
because the daily life of the people is republican. France has 
broken with the past, and upon her falls the work of recon- 
struction. In Liberia we see transplanted the principles of a 
free government, among a people who have lived here before 
they were colonized, and so have been partially educated in 
such principles. The Hindoo and Chinaman know nothing of 
representative institutions, and it would be indeed a difficult 
task to engraft them upon their despotisms. But the African 
colonist is prepared to receive those laws, under which he and 
his ancestors have lived and been protected. Surely such acon- 
sideration is not to be overlooked, and the advantages of the 
associations and history of the past must give us encouragement 
and hope for success, in this noble enterprise. 

What a glorious prophecy was that, which the great states- 
man of Massachusetts conceived to till the minds of the Fly- 
mouth Fathers: "if God prosper us," might have been their 
language, "we shall here begin a work which shall last for 
ages; we shall plant here a new society, in the principles of 
the fullest liberty and the purest religion ; we shall fill this 
region of the great continent which stretches almost from pole 
to pole with civilization and Christianity; the temples of the 
true God shall rise where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous 



11 

sacrifice; fields and gardens, the flowers of summer and the 
waving and golden harvest of autumn shall spread over a 
thousand hills, and stretch along a thousand valleys, never 
yet since the creation reclaimed to the use of civilized man. 
We shall whiten the Coast with the canvas of a prosperous 
commerce; we shall stud the long: and winding shore with a 
hundred cities. That which we sow in weakness shall be 
raised in strength. From our sincere but houseless worship, 
there shall spring splendid temples to record God's goodness; 
from the simplicity of our social union there shall arise wise 
and politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty 
which we ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for 
learning, institutions shall spring which shall scatter the light 
of knowledge throughout the land, and, in time, paying back 
where they have borrowed, shall contribute their part to the 
great aggregate of human knowledge; and our descendants, 
through all generations, shall look back to this spot and to this 
hour with unabated affection and regard." 

Why may we not hope the same for Africa? Changes as 
great have occurred in the veiy heart of heathen empires. 
Indeed all the civilization and Christianity which have marked 
the progress and crowned the life of the human family, have 
grown out of elements, as rude and forbidding as any which 
confront us in distant Africa. 

The Christian, especiall}', should be the friend and patron of 
this cause. It seeks to speed the fulfillment of the prophecy, 
that " Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." 
It is the quiet ally and herald of the Gospel. The prime 
object which it sets before the Christians of America is to 
redeem a people enslaved by sin and deluded by superstition. 
Little can be expected from the effort, if it be regarded, merely, 
as a political scheme, apart from any sense of obligation to 
God and sympathy for the souls of men. The Bible is the 
fountain of all true national strength and healing. It sweetens 
the streams of life and converts Marahs into Elims. And it 
would be, indeed, deplorable, if in the great effort of coloniza- 
tion, only the arts, sciences, and commerce should be advanced ; 

Webster's Work--, vol. 1, pp. 10, 11. 



12 

and the people still exhibit the mark of heathen debasement 
and a refined sensuality. 

Nothing but Christianity can preserve that Eepublic from the 
taint of the surrounding heathenism. What the Church Mis- 
sionary Society ol England did for Sierra Leone, we are bound 
to do for Liberia. By the same generous nurture, it will grow 
strong; its schools will multiply; its religion will be like the 
leaven in the lump; and spread over the surrounding mass of 
ignorance and superstition, as when the mists melt before the 
rising sun. We are bound to aid this cause. The examples 
of our bi-others call to us in voices which are too sacred to be 
disregarded. Our own Messenger, Minor, and the lamented 
Hoffman have laid down their lives there. And shall we suffer 
the precious sacrifices which have been made to redeem and 
Christianize Africa to be as water spilt upon the ground ? 
Shall they not rather prove the seed of a glorious harvest of 
redeemed immortal souls ? 

We are bound by the sacred trust which God has given us. 
The millions on that distant Coast cry to us, "Come over and 
help us." We appeal to you, to-night, to remember that 
race, to which, of all others, America owes the most solemn 
responsibilities. 



THE COLOE QXnESTTOIsr. 



A. LETTER 



WRITTEN FOR THE 



SIXTIETH ANNUAL MEETING 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 

Washington, §. (€., £anuary 16, 1877, 



EDWARD P. HUMPHREY, D.D., LL.D, 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. : 

Colonization Rooms, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue, 
1S77. 



THE COLOR QUESTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Louisville, Ky., January 11, 1877. 
Hon. Peter Parker, Washington City. 

My Dear Sir : I have heretofore expressed to Mr. Coppinger and 
yourself my regret that I cannot, in compliance with the wishes of 
the Executive Committee of the American Colonization Society, 
make an address at the approaching Annual Meeting. I have now 
the pleasure of your note of December 1, 1876, asking me to prepare 
a paper for the use of the Committee, showing "the influence of the 
benevolent operations of the Society on the state of things in this 
country." Herewith I submit to your consideration a few thoughts 
on this subject, to be used at your discretion. 

It is frequently said that, although the slavery question in this coun- 
try i$ settled, the color question has not been touched. Indeed the 
extirpation of slavery has introduced new and perplexing conditions 
into the problem. Before the law the colored man is the equal of 
the white man. His rights of property are acknowledged. The 
ballot-box is open to him. He is eligible to office, even the highest 
in every State and in the General Government. He may remove at 
his own pleasure from any one State to any other, and acquire citizen- 
ship wherever he goes upon the terms prescribed to the whites. His 
right of trial by jury is secured. No discrimination is made against 
him in the law of marriage and divorce, in the conditions imposed on 
the relations of the sexes, in the law of wills and testaments, or in the 
punishments awarded on conviction of crime ; he may be whipped, 
or imprisoned, or put to death in no other way than if he were a 
white man. These immense changes in his civil relations do not ren- 
der more simple or manageable the problem of the colored race; they 
add to its complications. The process by which the slave has been 
written the citizen has not changed his present social relations, nor is 
there in this process any promise of such a change hereafter. The 
controlling fact is that the overwhelming majority, eight out of nine, 
of our people are white ; the ninth is black. The people who bear 
the color stain have been everywhere and always, in this country, the 
inferior, and for the most part the servile race. 

It may be useful just now to put to the test of common sense some 
of the more plausible answers to the question, What shall be done 



with the freedman ? For the first, it has been thought that they 
might be concentrated upon the Gulf States, all the whites leaving 
those States and all the blacks going thither from the other parts of 
the country. But there is not in the history of mankind an example 
of such a movement of populations; nor, if there were such exam- 
ples, is there any reason to suppose that this thing could be done 
here. The Gulf States include some of the choicest cotton-lands on 
the face of the earth, together with the only sugar-producing region 
in the country. These States hold, also, the mouths of the river 
Mississippi, with its widest and deepest channels. Does anybody 
believe that the whites now in possession will abandon that vast and 
fertile region to the blacks, surrendering to them, in the bargain, the 
control of the navigation of the great river? Again, the history of 
the Indian reservations shows that the whites are not in the habit of 
acknowledging the rights of an inferior race. A struggle is at this 
moment going on for the ownership of the Black Hills. They have 
been ceded to the Indians by solemn treaty. The red man is in pos- 
session, and his title is protected by the military power of the United 
States; but neither the ferocity of the Sioux warriors within the terri- 
tory, nor the vigilance of the national troops posted on its borders, can 
keep off the miners and speculators. A people who mean at all hazards 
to rob the Indians of their reservations are not likely to pull up stakes 
and abandon to the colored race the fertile shores of the Southern 
Gulf. They have just now built Deadwood City among the snows 
and bad lands of the Black Hills. They will hardly move awav from 
Mobile and New Orleans, and from the four or five neighboring 
States, for the accommodation of the freedmen. 

A second solution of the problem has been proposed. It is diffi- 
cult to state or to examine a proposition than which nothing could 
be more unreasonable or revolting. I refer to the amalgamation of 
the white and black races through unrestrained intermarriage. It 
would be a reproach to the intelligence of the colored race to inti- 
mate the existence of any expectation among them to that effect. 
The probabilities of its occurrence are not suggested by any historical 
analogies: not by the fusion of the citizens and helots of Sparta, or 
of the Roman masters and their slaves, or of the free-born Russians 
and their serfs. In all those instances the superior and inferior races 
were of the same color and of the same general stock. Not one of 
them touches the question how to obliterate the color-line which 
divides forty millions from five millions, the first made up chiefly of 
Anglo-Saxons, and the last of Africans, the Africans long held in 



slavery, and now laboring under the stain of color not only, but the 
prejudice of caste as well. Nor is there anything in the condition 
of the mixed breeds in Mexico, or in the amalgamation which is said 
to be now going forward in the West India Islands, to warrant the 
thought that universal miscegenation in this country is among the 
possibilities of the future. This method of solving the problem may 
be discarded without further argument. 

A third solution may be obtained by our agreeing to abide bv the 
present posture of affairs. It might be urged that the whites and the 
blacks are now living together. The one is the superior and the 
other is the inferior race. Both parties are now getting along after 
a fashion. Let the subject rest there. This is a plausible suggestion. 
For, first, this settlement of the question saves the trouble of study 
and discussion on the most difficult branch of social science. Next, 
this is an established element in American society; and whatever is 
now, and has long been, the settled order of things holds a position 
from which it is not easily dislodged. Further, the colored people 
are satisfied with their homes in this country, and the most of them 
resent any attempt to remove them. Their recent liberation and 
enfranchisement, procured and guaranteed by constitutional amend- 
ments, have strengthened their attachment to what they proudly call 
their native land. They are the equals of the whites before the law. 
No other disability disturbs them except their social inferiority; and 
this they are willing to endure, partly because they have become 
accustomed to it, and partly because they hope, though the whites 
think, against hope, for better things. And further still, the whites 
"accept the situation," because they do not see that it is possible to 
change it; and because the presence of the blacks, as laborers, is a 
convenience in the northern portion of the former Slave States, and 
a supposed necessity in the Gulf States. 

Here we come upon the main obstacles in the way of African 
Colonization. The cause has but a feeble hold on the people of 
either race. The blacks will not go to Africa, a few only excepted. 
The whites do not believe that 5,000,000 of people can be removed 
thither; nor are they willing to give up their old servants as a sepa- 
rate, inferior, and docile class of laborers and menials. 

Standing face to face with all these obstacles, have we any further 
plea to urge in behalf of Colonization? If so, what is the nature and 
ground of the plea? For answer to these questions, let it be borne 
in mind that the freedmen are now rising apace in the scale of intelli- 
gence, self-respect, sound morality, and the religious sentiment and 



• 

ife. Nothing of the kind is more remarkable than their progress in 
these directions. It has exceeded the hopes of their most sanguine 
friends. A visit to their schools, to their churches, and to the 
ecclesiastical meetings of the colored preachers would surprise those 
even who entertain the largest expectations respecting their enlighten- 
ment and elevation. 

It is to be expected that the progress of education and religion 
among them will raise up a class of people who will demand for 
themselves and their children a better home than will be afforded to 
them here. When they were in shivery their hearts were set on 
emancipation. What sacrifices were made by many of them, to 
secure personal freedom for themselves and their children, will not 
be forgotten by this generation either of the former masters or 
servants. They are now free beyond the possibility of re-enslave- 
ment. This is the first step. Then, being freemen, they began to 
seek equality before the law with their white neighbors. They were 
taught to say: "Of what use is freedom to us, so long as we are de- 
prived of the ordinary rights of freemen? We are refused the self- 
protection afforded by the ballot-box; the coveted prizes of citizen- 
ship, the inspiring rewards of good behavior are denied us; and the 
law, instead of recognizing our equality, inflicts upon us, and entails 
on our unborn children the stigma of legalized caste. Let us have 
the rights as well as the personal liberty of free citizens." This is 
the second advantage which has been sought and gained for them. 

Now for the third. Having gotten their freedom and their civil 
rights, the wealthy and cultivated people of color will aspire to 
social equality. Their pride will be stung by the slights that will be 
put upon them, by the indignities which white people of ruder and 
coarser manners than they will inflict on their families, and by the 
polite but more freezing exclusion which the better classes of the 
whites will strongly enforce. They will say, " Freedom is a great 
gift, equality before the law is a great gift ; but what are these so long 
as our children are not suffered in social intercourse to cross the color- 
line— a bar more hateful than the ' dead-line^' of the military prison?" 
Parents might endure the stigma of inferiority for themselves, but not 
for their children. Could they be convinced thai their descendants 
of a remote generation will rise to a social equality with the whites, 
even to the extent of intermarriage — which is and ought to be for- 
ever impossible — even then, the better classes of them will hardly feel 
at liberty to leave their own children to be worn out by the sufferings 
which they must endure in wearing out what they deem an odious 



prejudice of caste, all for the sake of future generations. Men prefer 
the well-being of their immediate children to the comfort of unborn 
and remote descendants. To the most intelligent and far-seeing 
parents the question will surely occur, whether there is not some- 
where under the sun a country where their children may at once rise 
to the dignity and just pride of men and women who are socially, as 
well as by force of law, the equals of the highest. This inquiry, 
which is sure to assume an urgent form, leads up to the remaining 
solution of the problem. 

That solution is proposed by the American Colonization Society. 
It is busy and patient in the preparation of a home for these people 
which shall fulfill all the conditions of a home. It is a fact, every 
way remarkable, that the skies are brightening in Africa just at the 
time when the color question becomes more serious than ever. The 
hopeful signs may be easily pointed out. For the first, Liberia is 
entering on a new career of prosperity. It is no longer a feeble 
settlement, struggling for a foothold upon the edge of a continent 
occupied by barbarous tribes and white savages trading in slaves. It 
is no longer a colony, with fair prospects of success as a colony merely. 
It is a free Commonwealth, with a written Constitution, good laws, 
and an established Government. The authorities are obtaining hon- 
orable and peaceable possession of the outlying regions. Their power 
of self-protection against the hostile native tribes has been maintained 
by force of arms. The health of the climate is constantly improving. 
Agriculture, the source of boundless wealth, is steadily gaining ground. 
Churches and schools and all the allied forces of Christian civilization 
are in vigorous working order. To all this it must be added that the 
citizens of the new Republic are all colored people ; the white man 
being forever disfranchised by an express provision of the Constitution. 
Such is the home which is to-day offered to so many of our colored 
people as are looking for another country better than America for 
themselves and their children. 

And further still, the world is beginning to find out that "Western 
Africa is only a narrow and low-lying border of a great continent. It 
required nearly a hundred years after the settlement of Jamestown and 
Plymouth for our fathers to ascertain that the strip of country between 
the Atlantic and the Alleghanies was not North America, but only 
a thoroughfare to the heart of the continent in the valley of the 
Mississippi. That vast central region has drawn to itself emigrants 
from other countries which may be counted by millions. 

Recent discoveries in Africa are not less surprising. From Li 



on the Western Coast to Abyssinia on the Eastern, the breadth of the 
continent is four thousand miles — one thousand more than the distance 
from New York to San Francisco. The surface of Africa is not less 
diversified than the surface of America. There are low lands and high 
lands, jungles and sandy plains, mangrove swamps, and mountains the 
tops of which are covered with snow. There are basins for inland 
seas and channels for mighty rivers. Lieutenant Cameron informs us 
by his personal observation that "most of the land from the Tanganyi- 
ka to the Western Coast is of almost unspeakable richness. There 
are metals — iron, copper, silver, and gold; coal also exists; vegetable 
products, palm-oil, nutmegs, cotton, several sorts of pepper and coffee, 
all growing wild. The Arabs have introduced rice, wheat, onions, and 
a few fruit-trees, all of which seem to flourish well." There are other 
indications of the immense resources of interior Africa. Within a 
short journev from Liberia a group of kingdoms may be found, some of 
which have been in existence for more than a thousand vears. These 
contain wide districts of fertile soil, producing cotton, rice, and corn. 
The air is cool and sweet, and the region is by nature every way in- 
viting. Now the discoveries already made and to be made hereafter 
in Africa may be expected to invite an immense emigration. The 
question has been often put us by the colored people, "If Africa is so 
good a eountry why do not the white people go there themselves?" 
This question rray receive an unexpected reply. Stranger things have 
happened in the migrations of the human family than the settlement of 
large districts of Africa by the white races, and bv the return thither of 
immense numbers of its own now exiled children. These last will be 
in a condition to choose, not only between this country and Liberia, 
but between this country and the most attractive regions of New Africa. 
And further, it is reasonable to anticipate that the impulse of emigra- 
tion, having once taken possession of these people, will lead to their 
voluntary colonization in regions within easy reach of this country. 
Jamaica, Porto Rico, Hayti,San Domingo, Cuba, or the South Amer- 
ican States may invite the intelligent and enterprising colored people 
of a new generation to found free commonwealths within their do- 
mains. A race resolved on seeking a new home will find or make one 
for themselves. 

Migration makes up one of the most wonderful chapters in the his- 
tory of the world. We find near at hand an illustration of the power 
of this movement. It is said that within a quarter of a century 
'i 848-1 873) over five millions of foreigners have been landed in 
New Yorl nun equal to th ntire colored popula- 



9 

tion of the United States. Some of" the forces that instigate and 
secure migration are oppression, poverty, civil inequality, bad land 
laws and labor systems, social disabilities, dissatisfaction with the old 
and the attractiveness of new homes. The motives now known or 
unknown which will stimulate the voluntary removal of the colored 
race to other lands may, within our second century, go very far 
towards solving the problem. And it may turn out that the greatest 
work of our Society is the suggestion of colonization in foreign lands, 
together with a demonstration in Liberia of its feasibility, as a cure for 
the evils which now afflict the white no less than the black races. 

Such is the solution which our Society applies to the problem. 
We are not entitled to say that it will be actually solved in this way. 
The thoughts of the Almighty are higher than our thoughts and His 
ways are higher than our ways, higher than the heavens are above 
the earth. He is accustomed to accomplish His gracious purposes by 
methods which no human sagacity can divine. But we are entitled 
to say that our plan is the best plan yet suggested for the future eleva- 
tion of the colored race. We are not at liberty to discard this scheme 
until a better is proposed ; and if there be a better, the vigorous pros- 
ecution of this may lead us on to that. 

Our Society is the only body of men in existence organized solely 
for the benefit of the colored peoples here and in Africa. The Amer- 
ican Anti-Slavery Society labored for the emancipation of the slaves, 
but it contemplated nothing beyond that. On the adoption of the 
Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution the Society 
adjourned without day. It did not even attempt to perpetuate and 
strengthen itself to grapple with the question, What shall be done 
with the freedman? That question was the unavoidable sequence of 
their emancipation and enfranchisement. // is a question which 
everybody foresaw would arise and must be met; a question which may 
convulse the nation, and may in its settlement change the face of the world. 
Instead of meeting this great crisis in the affairs of two races 
and two continents, all the anti-slavery Societies went suddenly 
into dissolution; but the crisis itself with all the problems which it 
involves survives these extinct associations. The color question must 
be met; the sooner the better. If we allow things to take their 
course, the two races remaining as they now are, together and not 
together, the history of other countries may, perchance, repeat itself 
here in the gradual decay and final extinction of the weaker under the 
shadow of the stronger. We would shut our eyes upon any solution 
of the problem, which is unworthy of a humane and Christian people. 
As to a war of races, perish the thought ! 



10 

Now, the Colonization Society, standing alone in this work, is 
bound to hold on its way for the sake of the country agitated with 
troubles growing out of the color question, for the sake of the freed- 
men for whom the Society has faithfully labored through the period 
of sixty years, for the sake of Christian missions in Africa, and for 
the sake of humanity and the welfare of the human race, which are 
all the time in peril. Hitherto God has helped the Society. He 
will not leave it in doubt concerning what other and greater works 
He will require at its hands. 

For the rest, let the friends of this Society continue to study the 
elevation and happiness of the colored people. Let us foster their 
churches and schools of common and higher learning. Let us help 
them in their efforts towards self-respect, refinement, and true re- 
ligion. Let us show that we are too faithful in our friendship to 
advise them to struggle for social equality here, and faithful enough 
to provide for them a new home in Africa, where they may found 
free Christian commonwealths for themselves and give the Gospel to 
a great continent. 

Very truly, yours, 

Ewn. P. Humphrey. 



¥l\e (^rigti&q Civili^tioq of Sfridk. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



J ANUA RY 1 6, 1877, 



Hon. JOHN H. B. LATROBE. 



PUBLISHED ST REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON CITY: 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 
1877. 



ADDEESS 



Members of the American Colonization Society, 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 
In the year 1853, Mr. Everett, addressing the Anniversary Meeting 
of that year, said: 

" Sir : I believe that Africa will be civilized, and civilized by the 
descendants of those torn from the land. I believe it, because I will 
not think that this great fertile continent is to be forever left waste ; 
I believe it, because I see no other agency competent to the task ; I 
believe it, because 1 see in this agency a wonderful adaptation." 

It was no new thought that Mr. Everett uttered on this occasion ; 
but, falling from his lips, these words had the weight due to his char- 
acter as an acute observer, a profound thinker, an experienced states- 
man, and an accomplished orator. 

It was a long, dim vista through which, with prophetic eye, he 
gazed when he uttered them. Since then, day to day, the prospect 
has been brightening, until, now, even the most incredulous may see 
the end that he foretold. 

The standpoint which Mr. Everett occupied, however, commanded 
a far wider view than that which the earlier colonizationists enjoyed 
thirty-seven years before, in 1816. A thick darkness then rested upon 
their way, which it needed the eye of a strong and abiding faith to 
penetrate. Such was the faith of Finley, and Bushrod Washington, 
and Harper, and Randolph, and Clay, and Key, and Mercer, and 
many another, whose names have now become historical in connection 
with our cause. 

The address of Mr. Everett in 1853 was made at the time when a 
new interest seemed about to be taken in Africa and things African. 
At that date, almost all that was known about the continent beyond 
its mere edges had been learned from Bruce and Park, Denham and 
Clapperton, Caille, the Landers, and Barth. Bruce had sought the 
fountains of the Nile, which he fancied he had found in Abyssinia. 
Park had crossed the mountains from the head waters of the Gambia 
Co the Niger; had visited Timbuctoo, and was murdered at Boussa 



when descending the river in the hope of unveiling the mystery of its 
mouth. Caille had made a detour from the Rio Nunez, struck and 
crossed the Niger high up, and reached the ocean again in Morocco. 
Denham and Clapperton had made their way from Tripoli across the 
desert, discovered the lake Tchad, and aroused attention by the pub- 
lication of their travels in 1824. Lander, going north from Badagry, 
on the way to the lake, was taken prisoner when he reached the 
Niger, and, being carried by his captors down the river to the sea, 
became in this way the discoverer of its mouth, or many mouths, in 
the delta between the great Bights of Benin and Biafra. Barth, with 
Richardson and Overweg, crossed the desert to Timbuctoo, and trav- 
eling widely through the Niger countries, published, in 1853, by 
far the most elaborate and satisfactory, if not the most entertaining 
account that had yet appeared of Central Africa. 

Since 1 853 the exploration of the continent has been far more active 
than it ever was before, and the public interest in Africa seems to have 
grown in proportion. 

In the last century there were but four attempts at exploration, 
excluding Park, whose second and most fruitful journey was in 1805. 
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century there were but three, 
including even Caille, whose travels did not end until 1828. In the 
second quarter we have but five ; while for the third quarter and down 
to this time there have been more than twenty, counting those only 
whose names are well known as contributors to our knowledge of the 
interior of Africa. 

With Mr. Everett's address, or, at all events, cotemporaneous with 
it, may be said to have revived the spirit of African exploration. 

During the period here referred to Liberia had been founded, and 
was growing slowly but surely, increasing, as she is still increasing, in 
strength, so as to become fitted some day for the destiny foretold for 
her — to vindicate her competency for the agency that Mr. Everett 
assigned to her — to prove, to use his words, "her wonderful adapta- 
tion to the work" of civilizing Africa; to do for Africa what the set- 
tlements of Plymouth and Jamestown, weaker far in their early history 
than Liberia has ever been, have in the end done for America; with 
this mighty difference, that here in America the white race has sub- 
jugated, trampled upon, and will, sooner or later, extirpate the red 
race that it found here, leaving it a tradition only; while the black 
race of Africa, "civilized," to use again the words of Mr. Everett, 
"by the descendants of those torn from the land," will have only 



reason to rejoice in the numbers that leave America to find in Africa 
their home. 

So great a result as the orator foretold is never brought about upon 
the instant. Long preparation precedes it always. Circumstances 
often apparently antagonistic are in the end found to have been, in 
some unexpected way, combined to produce it. In this case, a popu- 
lation, estimated by late writers at 199,000,000, of whom, says the 
same authority, scarcely one per cent, can be set down as civilized 
men, and little more than ten per cent, as semi-civilized even, was to 
be wrought upon. The mere statement of the proportion is appall- 
ing. Measure the chances of success by all past experience. Look 
at the fields where the labors of white missionaries have been the most 
encouraging. Count the number of their converts and subtract it 
from 199,000,000. Ask the zealous and devoted men and women 
who, for forty years and more, have labored on the Gaboon, on the 
Cavalla, and elsewhere on the continent, to enumerate their communi- 
cants, and then let us judge for ourselves what impression they are at 
all likely to make upon this enormous mass. And yet we all agree 
that this work, mighty as it is, has to be done. As philanthropists 
merely we would wish to believe that it will be done. As Christians, 
blessed with prophecy and revelation, it is our duty to believe it will 
be done. Then comes the constantly-recurring question, but how is 
it to be done ? And the answer is to be made in the language which 
has been used as the text of this address: It is to be done by "the 
descendants of those torn from the land ; " not by one or two, or one or 
two hundred white missionaries scattered here and there over Africa, 
like the " rari nantes in gurgite vasto" of Virgil, but by a missionary 
nation from across the sea, absorbing into itself, as the ages, if you 
please, roll on, those whom it came to teach. Towards such a result 
circumstances apparently antagonistic seem to have been tending. 

Who could have imagined that, when Henry de Vasco of Portugal 
began to creep with his timid expeditions along the Western Coast of 
Africa, they would ever bear upon subjects like the present? Who 
could have foreseen that the slave trade, which then originated in the 
greed of the Portuguese adventurers, was to have an influence upon 
the civilization of Africa and the spread of the Gospel? Who could 
have predicted that even the horrors of the middle passage would tend 
in the same direction by arousing the feeling that put an end to the 
inhuman traffic, only, however, after there had been placed in Amer- 
ica hundreds of thousands of Africans, whose descendants, by long 



6 

contact and association with the white race, would become so imbued 
with its characteristics as to be able to do for Africa what that race 
had done for them ; a result which the daily intercourse of generations 
on generations alone seems competent to effect. 

We see all this now; and looking back from the standpoint of to- 
day, we can follow the sequence ot events and see the combination of 
circumstances as distinctly as we can trace the course of a river and the 
tributaries from manv quarters that go to swell its volume upon the map. 

Nor, in connection with the agency which Liberia is to have in the 
civilization of Africa, must we overlook a peculiarity of the people 
upon whom it is to operate and which makes it of so much import- 
ance. It is not to be forgotten that while Europe has developed, from 
within, the highest culture of which man here below seems to be sus- 
ceptible ; while Chinese civilization has existed from remote times ; 
while India under its native princes, long ages before the day of Clive 
and Hastings, had its science and its art, and exhibited in its architect- 
ure such beauty as is illustrated in the Taj Mahal at Agra; while 
Mexico and Peru had made the advances that Cortes and Pizarro 
found there ; while the same may be said of Japan that has been said 
of China — vet the native African is, to-day, what the paintings on 
Egyptian tombs represent him to have been when he figured in the 
processions that swelled the triumphs of the kings in whose reigns 
were built the pyramids, the temples, and the palaces whose ruins 
crowd the borders of the Nile. 

Certainly, then, it is only a fair inference that, with but an inferior 
faculty of self-development, the civilization of Africa must come from 
without, and not from within, her borders. And where is it to come 
from, save from America — from the nation of missionaries here pre- 
pared for the purpose, " the descendants of those torn from the land ?" 
This is the agency by which the work is to be done. And never were 
truer words spoken than when Mr. Everett said, " I see no other 
agency competent to the task; I see in this agencv a wonderful adapt- 
ation." 

Looking forward to the remoteness of the end, it is as far off to-day 
as it was when Mr. Everett spoke The twenty-four years that have 
elapsed may be counted as an hour only of the time that must inter- 
vene before all men shall admit that the great result has been accom- 
plished. But the happening of it is not the less sure ; and all that 
has yet taken place in this connection but strengthens, or ought to 
strengthen, our faith in it. 



It is very true that when, in 1816, the American Colonization 
Society was formed, the vast majority of the descendants of these " torn 
from the land" in the United States were slaves, and that now there 
is not a single slave in all our wide domain ; and there may be those 
who will argue that with all avocations, in all the walks of life, open to 
all ; with the highest political distinction within the reach of all; there 
is far less motive for emigration than when color was a disqualifying 
badge in a thousand offensive ways. And the same persons may point 
to the high positions honorably filled by men who, twenty years ago, 
were either slaves or the descendants, more or less remotelv, of slaves, 
as creating an inducement to remain in America more potent than any 
that formerly existed. 

The argument on these grounds is a weak one. The closer the 
assimilation which contact and association for generations on genera- 
tions have brought about between the two races in those characteristics 
which fit men to influence men in the interests of civilization, the 
more capable is the Africo-American of taking upon himself the work 
that is yet to be performed in Africa — the wider the field opened to 
his ambition in a land where, tree from the overshadowing competi- 
tion of a different race, he may do the work which he and his are 
alone competent to perform. That he will perform it, all things 
seem to indicate in the preparations that have so long been going for- 
ward Among these not the least important and significant are the 
explorations that have been extending our knowledge of the continent 
and its people. They have shown that in no part of the globe are 
the treasures of the mine, rhe soil, and the forest more abundant; while 
nowhere else has nature been more prodigal of beauty ; and the 
journeyings ol Speke, and Burton, and Grant, and Livingstone, and 
Schweinfurth, and Cameron, and Stanley have created an interest in 
Africa before unfelt: and, to-day, the return of Stanley is anticipated 
by thousands as letting on still more the light of day, so to speak, 
upon what has been tbe dark interior of this quarter of the globe. 

It is only within a few months that one of the most intelligent and 
enlightened monarchs of Europe convened in Brussels a Congress of 
geographers, men of science, distinguished African travelers, and others, 
with a view to the concentration of effort in this direction, so that 
exploration might be carried on, not sporadically, but upon a system 
having especial regard to this great matter of civilization. It was with 
profound regret that the speaker found himself unable to accept the 
invitation that his office of President of the American Colonization 



8 

Society, no doubt, procured for him, to be present at the meeting at 
Brussels on the i ith September last, as the guest of King Leopold, if 
for no other reason than because he lost the opportunity of expressing, 
and elaborating, and justifying, as he has endeavored to do this even- 
ing, the views that have been made the subject of this address. 

Should it be said that the scant numbers that of late years the Soci- 
ety has sent to Liberia is not encouraging in this connection; the an- 
swer is, that there has been no want of applicants to go there. The 
Society could have sent six thousand who are on its list, had it pos- 
sessed the means to send them. And if it is then said, that this very 
want of means is indicative of an indifference on the part of the public 
which is inconsistent with that increase of interest in Africa which 
has now been dwelt upon, it may be answered that African coloniza- 
tion must, as a matter of course, be independent, as regards its great 
ultimate results, of the means to be furnished by a philanthropic asso- 
ciation, no matter how ample its endowment. African colonization 
differs in nowise from any other colonization — eastern from China to 
America, or western from Europe to our shores. It depends, as do 
all others, upon the attractions of the new home, the repulsions of the 
old one, or upon both combined ; and when it does take place it must, 
like that which now takes place from Europe to America, be volun- 
tary and self-paying, crossing the ocean over the bridge that commerce 
makes for it. The function of the American Colonization Society 
has been to build up in Africa a nation possessing such attractions, 
capable of self support, of self-government, civilized and Christian, 
recognized as a member of the great family of nations through honor- 
able treaties, and having the sympathy of the whole civilized world, 
as well on account of its origin as for its purpose and its destiny. This 
the Society believes that it has accomplished; until now, as the fruit 
of 160 voyages, upon which no vessel has been injured by wind or 
wave, not one lost by shipwreck, it has received in Liberia 20,820 of 
the descendants of those torn from the land; an English-speaking 
people, whose Government is modeled after our own, and whose suc- 
cess has vindicated beyond all question the ability of the Africo- 
American to maintain in Africa an honorable nationality, capable of 
the amplest development in all the best qualities of civilization. 

That this will have the attraction that will in the end make Libe- 
ria the mother of a great missionary nation, all things seem to 
promise; and the end can no more be staved by the condition of the 
Society's treasurv, this year or the next, than can the succession of 





the years themselves be affected by the sunlights or the shadows of their 
seasons as they roll. 

There is a time for all things; a fullness of time, when all things 
become fit for the event that is to take place. It may be hastened or 
retarded, but its coming cannot be prevented. All history has shown 
this, and illustrations from history might be multiplied indefinitely; 
and were gold to be found now, as explorations already made in Li- 
beria indicate that before long it will be, within as easy reach of 
Monrovia as the mines of California were within reach of the western 
States of the Union, or as those of Australia were within reach of the 
inhabitants of Melbourne, there would be no need of resorting to the 
treasury of the Society to meet the expenses of emigration. 

Nor is Liberia to depend upon the sacra fames auri alone for its 
growth and prosperity. There are causes at work of a very different 
description, and which will continue to operate until the intercourse 
between Africa and America shall become as active as that between 
Europe and America, affording facilities for an emigration eastward as 
great as any that ever came westward to our shores. 

Ingenuity has gone even beyond the demands of an increasing and 
ever-exacting civilization. The looms and the forges and the work- 
shops of Europe and America produce more than the consumers of 
Europe and America and the other known markets of the world can 
pay for. All markets are glutted with their products. New mar- 
kets must be found, or the whirl of the spindle, the blast of the fur- 
nace, and the ring of the anvil must cease, and those dependent upon 
them must suffer. When starvation marches close behind the com- 
petition that produces cheapness, starvation will catch up as soon as 
cheapness ceases to tempt consumption. In a word, to leave the 
figurative for the fact, new markets are rapidly becoming a necessity. 
England feels this, and with the wise forecast of her statesmanship 
has for years been laboring to provide for it. Comparatively speak- 
ing, the only virgin market of the world, to-day, is Africa. America, 
too, has been sensible of it; and the emigrants of the Society are taken 
to Liberia now by the merchant-traders from New York; and the 
readiest means of communicating with Monrovia or Cape Palmas is 
by way of England by two lines of steamers which sail from Liver- 
pool continuing their voyages along the Coast as far east as the Bight 
of Benin. 

When the territory, now Liberia, was purchased from the native 
kings by Commodore Stockton and Dr. Eli Ayres in 1821, nothing 



10 

of all this was anticipated. There had been, as we have seen, no 
exploration of Africa, no spirit of exploration, no King of Belgium to 
concentrate and systematize such a spirit. The most profitable article 
of African produce was man. The most active trader along the Coast 
of Liberia was the slave ship. The mills of England had ample 
markets to which to send their manufactures. The mills of America 
had scarcely an existence. A steam-engine had not long ceased to 
be a curiosity. But look around to-day. How vast, how wondrous, 
how unexampled the change. Its details it were idle to particularize. 
Our subject is Africa; and it is in connection with Africa only that 
these things are referred to. Whatever their influence in other direc- 
tions, their tendency unquestionably is to bring about the day when 
America shall in some sort pay the debt she owes to Africa in the 
fitness which "the descendants of those torn from the land" have 
acquired during their long and weary servitude — to spread over this 
vast continent as a thrice-blessed garment, civilization and the gospel, 
fulfilling wisely and beneficently all the duties of the agency which, 
to recur again to the words of Mr. Everett, is alone "competent to 
the task." 

Not single heralds now go forth 

To earn Thy smiles' reward — 
To preach Thy law, proclaim Thy word, 

Redeemer, Saviour, Lord ; 
But, bursting through the thrall of* years 

Their fathers' home to gain, 
A nation, now, exultant bears 

Thv truth bevond the main. 



Patriotism. Philanthropy, and Religion. 



AN ADDRESS 



HEFOKE THE 



American Colonization Society, 



JANUARY 16, 1877, 



ALEXANDER T. McGILE D.D. LED. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON CITY : 
Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1877. 



A.DD RE8S 



Mr. President: Truthfulness must be considered the only rock on 
which any moral reform or social combination will ever abide. After 
long observation I affirm that the American Colonization Society is 
the most truthful institution of uninspired wisdom I have known to 
be set up amid the passions of men and changes of time. No rock in 
ocean ever stood the conflict of surges at the base and tumult of storms 
at the summit with more simple and unchanging aspect of stability and 
usefulness. Truth is not simple as error is. She disdains the poverty 
of one idea, prefers to be complex, proceeds with a balance, and re- 
poses with confidence only when she is many-sided in her complete- 
ness. The wreath which was laid on the cradle of this organization — 
patriotism, philanthropy, and religion — is the same as it was threescore 
years ago, without the fading of one leaf or flower, whilst every other 
society with but one of these objects in its aim has withered away. 
Truth is also positive in her moderation. Error is negative, and 
therefore easier as well as simpler, coinciding with the passions of 
men, and achieving success with a quicker speed than is possible for 
the solid and temperate and well-poised movement of the true. 

Societies younger than ours, with the one idea of abolishing slavery 
at any cost and without delay, have triumphed already and disappeared, 
because their work is done. But ours may now be seen coming slowly 
up, with scant resources, to a ravaged field and forlorn occupation, and 
yet the best opportunity that ever dawned on her benevolence. No 
changes have changed her in the least. Slavery predominant and 
slavery destroyed are just the same thing to her interference — the 
problem of the black man remaining unsolved to her eye. We have 
always proposed to work with him as a freeman, and therefore gladly 
accept his emancipation everywhere. But what is freedom to him in 
the social degradation which yet remains? What is liberty worth 
when his own is used by others more than by himself, and that to 
make him a slave to his own passions? What is the bill of rights in 
his hand when it is reddened in a war of races or trampled with con- 



tempt, which no constitutional amendment can amend in the constitu- 
tion of our nature ? What is religion itself to him, the freedom with 
which the Son makes free, when its altars are abandoned for the polls, 
and its pulpits forsaken by the best culture it has, for the stump, the 
tribunal, and the brawl of pot-house politicians? 

It must be confessed that complicated misery and fearful danger 
attend the glorv of his manumission still, and it calls for more than 
one idea to heal the complication. No remedy here can advance 
him another step ; no mechanism of party can put on him the true 
habiliment of manhood. We must send him home, when he is will- 
ing to go, and see that his home is attractive and safe, as it was not 
when he was torn from it and sold from bondage to bondage. We 
must consign him as a citizen from one Republic to another, with 
gain to him in the transfer of true instead of nominal " liberty, 
equality, and fraternity." We must do by him for his home what 
the navies of Christendom could not do for the coast of Africa — stop 
the traffic in human flesh ; and we must do by him what all the mis- 
sionaries of Christendom besides could not do for a quarter of the 
globe — span it with an equatorial church, redeem it from the curse of 
Ham, and overspread the mvsteries of darkness and death on its bosom 
with the mysteries of "a kingdom which cannot be moved." 

Such is the composite object we offered sixty years ago as a true 
catholicon for the African race. And who can doubt it now, or 
allege that it was faulty or mistaken in anv one of its ingredients ? 
We seem to be hindered at present from gathering certificates on 
every hand. Party faction, more than sectional faction ever did, pre- 
vents us from asking Congress, and State after State, and church after 
church to witness the excellence of our object and the wisdom of our 
way. But it is enough to recall the memorials of attestation, which 
all men must honor, as a verdict on the past and a trust for the future. 
It would be well to begin another decade with a roll-call of the orig- 
inal officers and members, and ask what one of those illustrious men 
would now, if he were living, and led by the logic of events which 
have intervened, regret the institution, as too slow and cumbrous and 
neutral, or in anv one particular as not suited and true to the situation ? 
Would Bushrod Washington, or Henry Clay, or Daniel Webster, or 
John Randolph, or William Thornton, or Francis S. Key, or John 
Mason, or Charles Marsh ; would Robert Finley, or Samuel J. Mills, 
or William Meade ; would any one of the fifty original members who 
sat as peers in the first council of colonization, and represented there 



the patriarchal wisdom of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Marshall, 
say that the amazing overturn which we have witnessed in this genera- 
tion has altered one syllable of the original platform on which our 
object was placed ? 

1st. " To rescue the free colored people of the United States from 
their political and social disadvantages. 

2d. " To place them in a country where they may enjoy the bene- 
fits of free government, with all the blessings which itj brings in its 
train. 

3d. '• To spread civilization, sound morals, and true religion through- 
out the continent of Africa. 

4th. "To arrest and destroy the slave trade. 

5th. "To afford slave owners who wish or are willing to liberate 
their slaves an asylum for their reception." 

Only the last plank of this original has been loosened in the least 
by the great convulsion through which we have passed. Slave owners 
no longer exist among us with wishes or willingness to be consulted 
and regarded. But surely the nation itself, whose fiat has broken every 
yoke and made the slaves its own constituency, should be willing to 
liberate them from every ban that is left, from the very name of 
" freedman," and help them to an asylum which is absolutely safe, 
and more and more complete in all its appointments and attractions. 
What means "intimidation" in the charges and counter-charges of this 
convulsive present? No such word has ever yet been heard at the 
polls of Liberia. No military muster is made, or needed, or called 
for there to guard the franchise of a colored citizen. There, in- 
deed, he is his own master, free to canvass, free to change, free to 
vote, without one claim of antecedents on the one hand, or fear of 
.guns upon the other. Is it not now as much as ever, and more 
than ever, "an asylum" for the black man? 

If he prefers, after all, to make this country his home, with a view 
to advance the improvement of his lot and elevate his race, we are not 
done with him in the true objects of our colonization. We shall stand 
at his side to help him and rejoice. For his advancement anywhere 
is not only a chief aim of the Societv, but a great auxiliary, both at 
home and abroad. The more elevated he becomes here the more 
fitted he is for Africa — to go himself or send others. We have never 
failed to choose the best for this emigration. If he be not cultured 
enough to know how to work, and how to vote, and how to bear 
office, how to teach and how to christianize in teaching, we do not 



elect him for the citizenship of Liberia. We would rather detain 
him, with all the damage his unfitness may do to ourselves, than send 
him over to be a burden or a pest in that community which we seek 
to model for the redemption of a continent. We do not forget the 
war of anti-slavery upon us on account of this kind of selection, and 
its vehement demand that colonization should wait for the best, until 
these could be used at home, in the work of immediate and universal 
abolition. And now we look to the magnanimity of the triumphant 
to spare the intelligence, and industry, and virtue, of which they have 
made so much, in order to propagate for us and Africa this glory of 
the race. 

Twenty-six years ago, Mr. President, at the great anniversary over 
which Henry Clay presided, I believe, for the last time, having the 
President of the United States on his right, and a vast audience, com- 
posed largely of statesmen, ambassadors, and philanthropists of the 
highest rank before him; after almost every phase of the subject had 
been swept by his magnificent eloquence at the opening, and after the 
Rev. Dr. Fuller, then of Baltimore, had followed him with ingenious 
prophecy and tender pathos which continued that brilliant assembly 
in a trance, you were felicitous enough, under all the disadvantage of 
being third orator in such a succession, to hold the unflagging interest 
of that house with the great thought that the work of the Society is 
more at present with Africa than with America ; to make the Colony 
attractive and draw to itself, without the persuasion of agencies here, 
the crowd that must be always eager to make their own condition 
better. That thought is my gateway to another line of truth, the 
truth of facts, as well as principles, in your beneficent and steady 
working to this hour. 

You began with a careful and costly experiment on the Coast to- 
find the most healthy location for your Colony. The life of Mills 
himself was paid in that experiment. But you succeeded. Even 
Plymouth and Jamestown, for health to the Englishman, were not to 
be compared with Monrovia for health to the American negro. You 
began with a tutelage to govern the colonist, because the power of 
self-government in him had not then been developed or tried ; and he 
became at once heroic in the hands of your Agency; refused to follow 
disheartened "tutors and governors" back to America; took the guar- 
dianship of himself into his own hands; declined the offer of British 
marines to protect him at the price of only a few feet to be ceded for 
their flagstaff, and with a band of but thirty-five fighting men repulsed 



the natives, led by their kings, with eight hundred in one battle, and 
double this number in another. Such heroes were Lott Cary and 
Elijah Johnson. They would buy territory for themselves and make 
their own Trustees of the chivalric Stockton and Ayres, who pur- 
chased Cape Mesurado for such colonists at the hazard of their own 
lives. We do not wonder that Ashmun and Gurley hastened in their 
wisdom to divide with such colonists the government of their own 
Commonwealth, and that the Society itself hastened to fulfil its prom- 
ise from the first, to resign its own authority as soon as the freedman 
could stand for himself. 

Nations are slow of growth, especially in the cradle of their youth. 
A centenary is the familiar unit with which we measure the growth 
of our own in its boast of unparalleled progress. But one quarter of 
a century — scarcely more than enough of years to bring the infancy 
of an individual man to the majority of manhood — was enough to 
bring your first handful of emigrants, who landed as guests merely at 
Sierra Leone and Campelar, without a foot of territory or shore to be 
called their own, to the dignity and independence of a Republic com- 
plete in every department of a nation's power, and acknowledged by 
the greatest nations of the world. And what if the subsequent advance 
in material greatness may not correspond with such a beginning, and 
the reproach of disappointed hope may have come to hinder the ex- 
pansion of colonization zeal among ourselves ? Does not life in all its 
analogies demand a quiet solidification to succeed a rapid growth ? It 
would be impossible for a narrow Coast of six hundred miles by fifty, 
with a vast interior of teeming and savage people pressing on its civil- 
ization with a proportion of twenty-five to one, at the process of assim- 
ilation, to go fast without being overwhelmed. It is the slowness of 
safety ; it is the compactness of unity ; it is the balancing of maturity ; 
in all respects the opposite of failure and decline, which must explain 
the present appearance of results in Liberia. Your thought is right 
and true, and your promise fulfilled, that Africa is overtaking America 
in the power of attracting immigration. Its agriculture is improving, 
its commerce increasing; its education already commands the respect 
of Universities in Europe, and its documents of State have become the 
admiration of Governments over the civilized world. The romance 
of travel is all gathered now to the old continent which it fringes and 
guards and aims to redeem. The engineer is at the heels of the ad- 
venturer in this age, and he is always followed soon by trains of immi- 
gration. 



8 

The attraction to Africa of her own children will be a stream 
which is not to be reversed. Our great asvlum in this land for all 
nations already suffers some reversal. The skill of industries, and 
even the toil of common labor, have almost crowded the voyage back, 
to the old world of late, because of the redundancy and the mixture 
of races to be met in our workshops and fields. The discouragement 
of capital is much; oppressive legislation is more; but most ot all is 
the jostle of nationalities — Caucasian, Ethiopian, and Mongolian — in 
their free fight for employment and a living, the cause ot this back- 
ward turning from America. But Africa forbids by her climate all 
competition with her sons. There may be on the heights of her 
grand interior safe retreats from the fever of her Coast to attract in 
coming time enough of other kindreds to stimulate the development 
of her own myriads and make a civilization equal to the best; but 
the din of busy occupation, the hum of toiling millions, the rewards 
of tillage on her exuberant soil must be chiefly, by God's own appoint- 
ment, Ethiopian. 

His blessing has attended thus far the work of your hands. This 
might indeed be counted on, when we know it is right and true by its 
principles and aims; and if our depression had been a thousand times 
deeper than it ever was, the integrity of motive and operation would 
have assured us that God is with us. But see the signals of His pres- 
ence and direction from the beginning. It was no sudden or acci- 
dental thought of Dr. Finley or any other agent in the first convoca- 
tion. It was older than the Revolution of American Colonies in its 
meditation and projection, and when the time had come "all things 
worked together for good." Patriotism in the legislative councils of 
Virginia ; pietv in the conference of clergymen at Princeton, N. J., 
and missionary ardor among the studems of theology at Andover, 
flowed together simultaneously to begin this organization. God has 
ennobled it in the succession of its Presidents. Washington, Carroll, 
Madison, and Clay have been the line of your predecessors. He has 
guided the selection of agents and officers of every kind without one 
mistake in the appointments of human wisdom. He has prospered 
the vovagc at all times, without one shipwreck with loss ot life in 
sixty years. Truly we may thank Him and take courage. "What 
hath God wrought?" We may well rely on His abiding benediction 
when we feel sure that His own ark is in it, as it was in the House of 
Obed-edom. 

The white man sent with the gospel to Africa perishes quickly and 



9 

constantly, as if it were the " breach upon Uzzah " for him to attempt 
any more the devout but deadly adventure. And vet the living min- 
ister must go there with the great commission upon him. It is the 
Divine appointment. Bibles and tracts and schools are treasures of 
unspeakable value ; but we must keep them " in earthen vessels" — men 
of like passions with others. " The foolishness of preaching," more 
than eloquence of any other sort, must be made to save men by means 
of sympathy between man and man. It is the colored preacher that 
must go, and go as a colonist, identified with the emigrating band in 
seeking a home, or brought up in the colony itself and educated there. 
Half way back in the lapse of your anniversary time, and more than 
halfway back to the first planting of the colony, Mr. Clay said from 
that chair, " What Christian is there who does not feel a deep inter- 
est in sending forth missionaries to convert the dark heathen and bring 
them within the pale of Christianity ? But what missionaries can be 
so potent as those it is our purpose to transport to the shores of Africa ? 
Africans themselves by birth, or sharing at least African blood, will 
not all their feelings, all their best affections induce them to seek the 
good of their countrymen ? At this moment there are between four 
and five thousand colonists who have been sent to Africa under the 
care of this Society; there are now twenty-five places of public wor- 
ship dedicated to the service of Almighty God and to the glory of the 
Saviour of men ; and I will venture to say that they will accom- 
plish as missionaries of the Christian religion more to disseminate its 
blessings than all the rest of the missionaries throughout the globe." 

About the time our great patriotic statesman was talking thus, like 
an eloquent evangelist, Lieutenant Forbes, of the British Navy, was 
publishing his book on Dahomey, in which it was virtually declared 
that Liberia was a cheat, and that our Society was engaged in trans- 
ferring to the shores of Africa American slavery under another name. 
The prompt denial of this, and triumphant appeal to the Constitution 
of the Society and the facts of history, could not hinder the American 
Anti-Slavery Society from siding with Forbes and maligning Clay, and 
insisting that our officers had evaded the issue in their emphatic refu- 
tation. Where, now, is the truth, after all that obloquy, and the vic- 
tories of our assailants, and the overthrow of slavery, and the advent 
of freedmen to search for themselves the records of Congress, and 
twelve States at least, and ecclesiastical assemblies innumerable, attest- 
ing the singleness of aim with which the Society has always sought 
to secure the liberty and culture and salvation of the negro? Our 



10 

existence itself" at the Sixtieth Anniversary may answer. Persistency 
is triumph wherever truth is marshaled. The pointing of your finger 
is equal to the marching of a host, when all things are ready. Vindi- 
cated, established, and successful, beyond all precedent, among the 
voluntary societies of the world, I would say to you "stand still, and 
see the salvation of the Lord." But you have already listened to 
these words long enough, with the raging of a red sea before you, 
and the pillar of the cloud behind you. Your great opportunity, 
God's own opportunity for movement, has come, and louder than a 
thousand billows the voice of His Prophet is heard, saying, " go for- 
ward." What if the patriotism and the philanthropy both should yet 
be challenged and impugned whilst the public mind is bewildered 
with the problem of freedmen at our doors by the million? Those 
objects were feet in your progress. Take now the wings which have 
-infolded them all along, and spread these to heaven henceforth, and 
let all men see the ultimate and main identity of your mission: 
"Another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting 
gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every 
nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." 

Surely nothing is lost to humanity or patriotism or any other object 
of your manifold original by soaring in this way. It is infinitely better 
to be narrowed upwards than downwards, to have the expanse of a 
firmament that touches everything with light and life to be your mar- 
gin than the vale of cold and dark infidelity, where so many other 
societies have descended to die. Let it be seen that the best economy 
of Christian Missi»ns attaches itself to the work of Colonization, as 
Hopkins, and Stiles, and Mills, and Burgess, and Ashmun, and Alex- 
ander have taught us to believe, and America and Africa both are 
yours, and both shall pass away from the orbit of earth before the 
crown of your immortality shall fade. 



THE ELEVATION OF A RACE AND 
THE REDEMPTION OF A CONTINENT. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



American Colonization Society, 



ar-A.Kr-cj-A-n.Tr is, 1878, 



WILLIAM H. ALLEN, LL D„ 

President of Girard College. 



983tiUE£gl££ Bg &iE<hWB%®. 



WASHINGTON CITY : 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1878. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — 

When Bushrod Washington was elected President of the American 
Colonization Society, sixty-one years ago, not one of the eminent men 
who had organized that Society imagined that the colony they were 
about to plant on the coast of Africa would be an independent nation 
before the close of the next thirty years. And when, thirty years ago, 
Joseph Roberts delivered his inaugural address as first president of the 
infant republic, who would have dared to predict that before twenty 
years should pass away there would not be a slave in the United States, 
and that before the year 1878 there would be schools and colleges and 
universities in successful operation for the instruction of colored youth? 
The bold prophet would have been sent to prison as "a person danger- 
ous to the peace of society," had he been caught in the South, and in 
the North he would have been regarded as a crazy enthusiast. The 
march of history is accelerated in these later years. 

The succession of historical events, which, as Christians, we name the 
order of Providence, is not unfrequently an evolution of good from 
evil. God causes the wrath of man to praise Him. Prosperity has 
sprung from adversity, right from wrong, freedom from slavery. The 
Hebrew lad, sold into bondage by his brethren, becomes their preserver 
and benefactor. Saul of Tarsus goes forth breathing out threatenings 
and slaughter, and returns to preach the faith he had tried to destroy. 
Almost every step in the progress of civilization has been through tears 
and blood. The best we have is "the good of suffering born." The 
death of Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light. The cross 
precedes the crown. 

Let us suppose that a historical problem is to be solved. A conti- 
nent is to be redeemed from barbarism to civilization, from idolatry to 



Christianity. Suppose that the inhabitants of that continent are in- 
capable of self-elevation, and therefore science, art, social culture and 
religion are to be imported from abroad. Suppose further that the cli- 
mate is insalubrious to foreigners, and therefore science, art, social cul- 
ture and Christianity will not be imported by them. Suppose, finally, 
that the people are too indolent to seek such benefits in other countries, 
and too ignorant to appreciate them if they did. Such was, and to a 
great extent is, the actual condition of a large part of Africa. How 
shall her millions be instructed, elevated, civilized, Christianized ? 

book at the long catalogue of evils and sufferings of which good has 
been born, and more good is yet to be bom, — wars of the native tribes 
to capture human merchandise ; the barracoon, the slave-ship, the hor- 
rors of the middle passage; the auction block, the rending asunder of 
families, the consignment to hopeless and hereditary bondage; tierce 
and protracted political controversy; a bloody and destructive war. 
Were there no compensation for these tremendous evils we might doubt 
whether there is a God in history. Let us see what good has come, or 
is promised, from two centuries of suffering and wrong. By contact 
with civilization a barbarous but imitative race became in a degree civ- 
ilized. The bondmen learned of their masters many useful arts, and 
how the comforts of life are obtained by labor. The descendants of 
idolators accepted the truths of the Bible with childlike faith, and em- 
braced a religion, not of the head but of the heart, a form of Christian- 
ity, sentimental and emotional it may be, but suited to their imperfect 
mental development. Then amidst the throes of a sanguinary war 
came emancipation, citizenship, civil rights, equality before the law, 
education, and for the industrious and frugal the gradual accumulation 
of property. And now, last of all, thousands are looking earnestly 
toward the land of their fathers, and preparing to realize the cherished 
hope and prophecy of this Society,— a self-supporting emigration to 
Africa. The hardy and energetic will go to better their own condition, 
or at least the condition of their children ; the educated and philan- 
thropic, to better the condition of the native Africans by opening 
schools for their children and preaching the gospel to those who sit in 
the darkness of ignorance and idolatry. The elevation of a race and 
the redemption of a continent are the two grand objects which the 
American Colonization Society has kept steadily in view, and which 



the present spirit of emigration, if judiciously directed, promises to 
realize. 

The thought of redeeming Africa by the instrumentality of her own 
children brooded in the minds of Christian philanthropists many years be- 
fore it took shape in this Society. Through all the years of slavery in this 
country the emancipation of individual bondmen was going slowly on. 
A few of the slaves purchased their freedom by the earnings of extra 
labor; others were liberated through the gratitude or conscience of hu- 
mane masters ; others by State laws. Thus arose two classes of colored 
people, free negroes and slaves. The social status of the two classes 
was very nearly equal. But in the South the free negroes were a con- 
tinual menace to slavery, and the South did not want them. In the 
North they competed with white labor, and the North did not want 
them. The masses at the North had much sympathy for colored peo- 
ple at a distance, and ill-concealed aversion to them near at hand. But 
both in the North and South were found true-hearted Christian men 
who sincerely desired to benefit the colored people, both bond and free. 
These were the noble men, all of whom have gone up to God, who or- 
ganized the American Colonization Society in 1817; planted the little 
colony on the African coast a few years later, and nursed it through its 
feeble infancy and dependent childhood for thirty years, and has 
watched its growing youth and contributed to its welfare for thirty 
years more. 

A nation is not born at once, nor does a child-state grow to manliood 
in a day. Time is au element in every historic movement. The Su- 
preme Being is patieut; "His mills grind slow, but they grind exceed- 
ing fine." The infant commonwealth must draw sustenance from the 
mother land. When its bones enlarge and harden, and its sinews be- 
come strong, it will stand alone. Its hand power must grow as its 
brain power grows, until with the help of both it will protect itself 
against aggression and violence. 

Liberia has passed its infancy. It can stand alone. It is passing its 
childhood and gaining strength for self-protection. Its brain power is 
respectable, as the addresses and other documents written by its public 
men abundantly prove. But it wants more hand power. It needs pop- 
ulation. It needs men with heads to plan and hands to execute; men 
with will and sinew to cultivate the exuberant soil, and add to the 



wealth and rira n sufficiency for present 

use of Esquires, and Honorables. and Excelien . - r.as enough of 

traders who cling to the shore and specular on supplies for arriving im- 
migrants. In a word, it wants more producers of wealth and les- 
;: ..-.-^tt.- : : :-;:« 

'. : z— 1:1.1:7 :i - . .-: : :_:: zzi :.~ r .. . ; ~r : — z '. ■?-.._■ 

ire : ::.e~> 
of our colored people has changed : and our mode of procedure which 
was necessary some years ago. when few but the poor and dependent 

- t ----....-_ : -._:--~^7— 7.. ^- £■:—.- ■---_ T :.-. 

- :-' .'.- .-..-.■ -z .: . -7 :'- _■- ■ '_ - r t_ ^--.v. z 

- Bl Morrb 

probably knows as mo: 7ria as any man in America, and who 

■ - _ ' 7 - .: 7 : : _L:r: ±z : . zz: .:: z zzz ::_r : ._• .: .z . 

moi- ;*st quarter of a centc _er word 

than rhK " The man who has no money here. 
Liberia." H: 

: our colored people in their own hands, die man who has not 
:- r •.- . >:-- : in .z . :.. -:'- : .r:.; • - . - .. - 7 . _ \z_-.-. _ ~:.. 
be a burden and not a help in Liberia. Our colored people are begin- 
ning to practice : ^m and save : and when any one of them 
- 

If he have courage to go there, send him on a free passa^. 

you please. But do not send the timid, nor tht nor the lazy. 

I z •-" ■ 7 i-- .7 ---:■- : . _-z: _.z:- — z- - ■ _:- 

his hat on one side of his head, and holds a tittle cane in one hand and 
a cur the other. He is too highly educated : 

He will be 1 gentleman in caricature. Send 5 ze ig e tt e men. 

who will not be afraid to go ou: -hip and *h->r- . go 

with the means, either in cotton doth, 
tobacco, or money, to buy a piece of land, be 
- : - 

-her the Dnk . igton commanded the British army 

in the war against Sapoleoav, be ordered a certain regiment to take 
spades and intrenc . thet were gentlemen ; came 

a ^ton wrote to the minister of war. " Send 



7 

me no more gentlemen, send me men." He wanted men who could 
handle a spade as well as a musket, So does Liberia. She wants more 
men with spade and hoe. Agriculture is the basis of all wealth; it 
supplies the material of commerce and manufactures ; it is the handmaid 
of civilization, the support of nations. The wise man said, " The king 
himself is served by the field." 

The exhibit which Mr. Morris made of Liberian products at our Cen- 
tennial Exposition, demonstrated the ability of that country to supply 
commerce with a goodly number of articles which the people of other 
countries desire and will pay for. Coffee, indigo, palm-oil, palm-soap, 
ivory, cam-wood, India rubber, sugar, arrow-root, ginger, ground-nuts, 
iron ore, gums and spices are products which the world demands and 
will consume. These are the promise and prophecy of prosperity and 
power; but they are not to be had without labor. The observation of 
a Greek philosopher, "God gives nothing valuable to men without 
labor," is as true now as it was in the days of Socrates; as true of Libe- 
ria as of America. We must not deceive our colored friends by descrip- 
tions drawn from imagination and not from facts. ■ Liberia is not an 
El Dorado where gold may be gathered like stones in the highway. 
Without industry, intelligently directed, there can be no prosperity 
anywhere. If the emigrant wants food or gold, he must dig for it; if 
he wants coffee, he must plant the trees and wait three years for a crop ; 
if he wants a cabin for shelter, he must build it. There, as here, free- 
dom means freedom to work, save and enjoy, or to be idle, destitute 
and miserable. 

The Exodus Associations, now organizing in the United States, are 
taking steps in the right direction. They contribute money and send 
delegates to Liberia to examine and report the condition, climate, soil 
and productions of the country, select healthy localities at a distance 
from the coast, and ascertain on what terms lands may be purchased, 
either of the Liberian Government or the natives. If the reports be 
favorable, large numbers will apply for passage with means to establish 
themselves in the selected localities, and relieve the Society of all 
further expense. 

It has been objected that this exodus will deprive the country of the 
labor of a valuable class of colored people, and leave behind the idle, 
the dissolute, the aged and infirm, a burden on the community. This 



objection seems, on first view, to have some weight ; but when we con- 
sider that our colored population is between four and five millions, it is 
obvious that the exportation of one or two thousand a year would reduce 
the productive force of the country in only an infinitesimal amount, and 
would cause no serious disturbance of its industrial interests. The exo- 
dus on any scale probable, or even possible within the lives of the pres- 
ent generation, will be but' a small fraction of the natural increase of 
the race. 

But if we admit, for the sake of argument, that the exodus of one in a 
hundred of robust, industrious men and women may diminish produc- 
tion temporarily in this country in a perceptible degree, its effect on the 
colored people who remain would be favorable. So far as competition 
for employment would be diminished, they would be better off. They 
would receive higher wages, because the labor supply would be less and 
the demand equal. They would receive better treatment from their em- 
ployers, whose interest it would be to keep them in the country and in 
their service. 

But there is no danger of " a corner " in the labor market. The com- 
fortable and contented will not emigrate ; the timid and ignorant will 
not. They who have young children or aged parents to support will 
" rather bear the ills they have than fly to others that they know not of." 
The ambitious, aspiring and discontented will emigrate. He who re- 
sents social ostracism and political inferiority will look to a country 
where his race is dominant and the government his own. It is not 
enough that his personal freedom is secure, that all his civil rights are 
guaranteed, that he has facilities for the education of his children, that 
his life, property and reputation are under the aegis of law ; the intel- 
ligent, thinking colored man feels keenly that it is not in the law, nor 
in his stars, but in himself, that he is an underling. He is one of a 
depressed race ; and so long as he remains under the shadow of a domi- 
nant race, so long will he remain an underling. lie will go where he 
will be the peer of the best. 

It would be an error for emigrants to expect, during the first few 
years of their residence in Liberia, all the comforts of life which they 
enjoyed in America. Such a mistake would lead to disappointment. 
The children of Israel were released from bondage, but, weary and 
footsore, huugry and thirsty, in their desert journey, they longed for the 



leeks and onions and fleshpots of Egypt. So the despondent emigrant, 
during the early part of his residence, may say to our Society as the 
Israelites said to Moses, "Why hast thou brought us forth to die in this 
wilderness ? " The early colonists who landed at Jamestown and Ply- 
mouth endured similar and more severe sufferings. Even those who 
heed the dictum, "Go West, young man," sacrifice something of present 
enjoyment to future well-being. The feebFe in mind or body are dis- 
couraged; the strong and hopeful work and wait and reap their harvest 
of good in due time, 

A self-sustaining emigration will be of immense value to the present 
Americo- Africans. The little republic needs men capable of bearing 
arms;— men to make roads to open up the country, — men of the various 
mechanical trades as well as farmers, who will contribute to the national 
wealth by their intelligence and industry. And who can estimate the 
blessings of such an emigration to the native tribes, especially to those 
which acknowledge allegiance to the Liberian government ? What in- 
crease of products by labor more intelligently directed ! What advance- 
ment in education! What moral and physical improvement! What 
diffusion of Christian light in the dark places of superstition ! Where 
industry goes, commerce will follow; where commerce goes, the mis- 
sionary will follow,— the Bible, the school, the printing-press, the 
steam-engine, the railway, all will follow in rapid succession. 

There are political considerations which favor a closer connection 
than exists at the present time between Liberia and the United States. 
But it is not probable that either party desires annexation. Liberia 
would not willingly surrender her independence, however prematurely 
it was declared. Her citizens would feel themselves dwarfed if their 
country should become an appendage of a distant and powerful nation 
in which they would be of no more importance than one of its fifth rate 
cities. Nor would the people of the United States desire the annexa- 
tion of an African territory with the responsibility of defending it in 
the event of a foreign war. Nations are more influenced by interest 
than by sympathy. They are slow to accept a bargain in which they 
take all the risk and expense, with but slender prospect of any compen- 
sating advantage. We are not going to make a railway from Monrovia 
to Cairo as a gratuity through sheer benevolence. Two and a-half centu- 
ries were required to prepare this country for a railway to the Pacific, 



10 

The railway from Monrovia to Cairo will be built, but it will be built 
piece by piece, as the needs of commerce and travel demand, and as 
capital shall find it a paying investment. 

Annexation would not promote the safety of Liberia, but in certain 
contingencies would increase her perils. Except in conflicts with na- 
tive tribes, the surest defence of Liberia is her weakness. No powerful 
nation would wage war against a people too feeble to make even a show 
of resistance. The whole world would cry ''shame." But if Liberia 
were annexed, it would be the most vulnerable part of the United 
States. An outlying territory, the gate to the rich commerce of a con- 
tinent, would be strongly coveted, easily seized, firmly held, and never 
evacuated except as the result of unsuccessful war. A protectorate, 
in some form, would conduce more to the safety of Liberia, and to the 
commercial and political interests of the United States than an organic 
union. We may rightfully say, we ought emphatically to say, to both 
her native and foreign enemies, if such there be, "Hands off! Don't 
touch this foster child of ours." 

No doubt the English merchants covet Liberia, because they wish to 
monopolize the trade of all Western and Southern Africa, from the 
great desert to the Cape of Good Hope. They will defy when they 
dare, and intrigue when they cannot intimidate. They will lend money 
to an impecunious government, as the price of its independence; and 
when pay-day comes they will say, "stand and deliver," unless we dis- 
pute the claim. We have a right to share in that profitable commerce, 
and shall not suffer the gate to be barred against us. Self-interest will 
induce the United States to protect Liberia against the neighboring 
tribes, which are peaceable unless made hostile by foreign intrigue. 

Permit me to say in conclusion, Mr. President, that this Society per- 
ceives in the near future the fruition of its hopes; the consummation of 
its work. It lias encountered obloquy at home and discouragements 
abroad. In circumstances the most adverse, it has cherished an abid- 
ing faith in the final triumph of its cause. Its firm trust in God, and 
love of humanity, sustained it when even the colored people, whose 
best friend it was, turned their hearts and faces against it. And now 
the day is dawning. Light breaks in all over the land. Education, 
industry and frugality arc preparing an emigration, of moderate num- 
bers at first, but gradually swelling to a mighty stream, as Liberia shall 



11 

be in a condition to absorb it, until commerce, civilization and Chris- 
tianity, overleaping the boundaries of the Americo-African republic, 
shall redeem the continent. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



American Colonization Society, 



JANUARY' 2<st, 1879 



Rt. Rev. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, D.D., LLD., 

Bishop of Central Pennsylvania. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON, CITY : 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1879. 



ADDRESS 



No thoughtful American can withhold the acknowledgment that 
there is due to people of African descent, in this country, the best that 
can be done for their welfare and happiness. Their ancestors did not, 
like those of European stock, come here as colonists of their own ac- 
cord to find new homes, and achieve a higher destiny. They were the 
victims of a policy then common to the civilized world. France, Spain 
and England drew from the shores of Africa unwilling servants to toil 
for them in their colonial possessions. And so, all along our Atlantic 
border, the. children of Ham, were, before we became a nation, " hew- 
ers of wood and drawers of water," — menials in house and field to 
other families of the human race. 

In the progress of human events, their descendants, now numbered 
by millions, are here no longer in involuntary servitude. All legal im- 
pediments to their advancement are removed. They are now free to 
aspire after any social or civil position to which their intelligence, edu- 
cation, and moral worth may entitle them. They may amass wealth, 
wield influence, hold office, like any other citizens. And individuals of 
their race have achieved such distinction among us. I think there are 
very few who are offended by these examples of men who have strug- 
gled up from the general abasement of their people, disarmed prejudice, 
and fairly secured positions of prominence and respect. Enthusiasts, 
who once espoused their cause when all this was impossible, and who 
have visions of the future of the race which, I apprehend, can never be 
realized on this continent, say, — why not let them remain where they 
are, on their native soil, and work out the problem of life, under the ad- 
vantages which now are accorded to them by the amended Constitution? 



Doubtless, the great mass of them will continue ; and get, and hold 
possession of all the titular rights which belong to American citizens. 
The removal of 5,000,000 of people across the ocean is too vast an en- 
terprise to be seriously considered ; most of them will abide where 
Providence, favoring or adverse, has fixed their lot. Yet it will be a 
new chapter in human history if with all the inherent difficulties of 
their position — difficulties which no change in the laws of the land can 
possibly annul — they can attain to the same level of social, commercial, 
and civil progression to which a dominant race of overshadowing num- 
bers has long ago risen. And this perpetual inferiority will not be in 
any great degree attributable to the prejudice which persists in looking 
down upon a people who have once been in bondage. It is equally 
true that the Indian, — civilize him as much as you will, — and the Mongo- 
lian, — in whatever swarms he may come to our shores — can never com- 
pete on the same arena with the race that for a thousand years has been 
in the van of human progress, and has the advantage of prepossession of 
education, property and power. And so, the African, impeded by his 
condition and history in this country, and crowded off from the track 
of progress by competitors of traditional precedence and overwhelming 
numbers, will, save in a few exceptional cases, earn a precarious liveli- 
hood by the sweat of his brow, hated and spurned by the laborers of 
another race who dig and delve at his side. 

The more intelligent and aspiring of African stock have a far more 
inviting field of enterprise open before them on their ancestral shores. 
A free Colony, which has now risen to the dignity of an independent 
Republic, and which has been planted long enough to demonstrate that 
it has in it the elements of permanency and progression, offers them an 
unstinted share in its noble mission, and in its exalted destiny. There 
is an unencumbered field in which they may seek advancement in all 
that man esteems honorable without encountering invidious rivalry or 
universal and indomitable prejudice. Here, at a disadvantage, because 
their civilization is inferior to that which surrounds and overshadows 
them, — thither they can carry a degree of moral and mental enlighten- 
ment which shall entitle them at once to social respect, and incite them 
to strive for the prizes of fortune and the honors of office. 

For, most of the colonists who have already found a home in Liberia 
imigrated under far less favorable circumstances than theirs who now, 



and hereafter, may embark on the same great life enterprise. They 
went in comparative ignorance, just released from the tutelage of servi- 
tude, and invested with the terrible responsibilities of liberty in a strange 
land. These have been for half a generation in the hard school of self- 
dependence — introduced by philanthropists to the rudiments of book- 
learning, and through freedom have regained the consciousness, and are 
fired with the ambitions of manhood. They can contribute to the com- 
mon stock of society there more of the ingredients which constitute 
national strength, prosperty, and honor, than their predecessors could 
afford. 

The pioneers have broken up the waste and made it ready, and have 
beaten back the savages that would drive them from the strand ;— now 
is the time ; and here are the men qualified by a special Providence to 
go in with the winnowed grain of a higher civilization, to " possess the 
land which the Lord sware unto their fathers." 

The time for colonization has not passed by: — "the fulness" of it 
has just come. The tokens of this fact are found both here and in Af- 
rica. The experiment of political equality, now tried among us for 
nearly a score of years has not shown that all distinctions of race are or 
will be forgotten. Centuries cannot efface even the factitious lines 
of demarkation between the races, which a century of untoward re- 
lations has produced, and deeply scored. Nature forbids them to 
blend; and history pronounces that they cannot stand side by side on 
the same plane of elevation. 

On the other hand, Africa was never so attractive as now. The 
American Colony, to which this Society has sent out more than 15,000' 
settlers is more prosperous than ever. It is recognized in the family of 
Nations. Its productions and exports are increasing year by year. Its 
intercourse with the more intelligent tribes of the interior is constant- 
ly widening and becoming more profitable. Its schools and other 
institutions for the advancement of the people; its laws and admin- 
istration of government, are growing more efficient and better adapted 
to their needs. It has had no inconsiderable share in the suppression 
of the slave trade, which is now denounced by all civilized nations, 
and* by the vigilance of their navies is almost banished from the seas. 
Just considered as a home for the colored race, where there are none 
to jostle them out of the way of progress — no impediment of law or 



6 

prejudice, or preoccupation on the arena of manly effort, where suc- 
ceeding generations may reasonably hope to surpass their fathers in all 
that ennobles man and makes his life a joy to himself and a blessing 
to others, Liberia is, I believe, the most inviting spot on the habita- 
ble earth ! 

But, regarding the Colony on the Coast of Africa, planted, enlarged, 
cultivated, and defended by colored emigrants from the United States, 
as a theatre on which men of the same race can most hopefully ex- 
ercise and develop the manhood that is in them, we do not half ap- 
preciate its advantages, if we think of it as a mere isolated commu- 
nity, bounded by the geographical limits, defined in the treaties with 
the barbarous tribes that compass it about ; it is the gate of entrance 
to interior Africa. And, what interior Africa is we are only begin- 
ning to know. The researches of Barth and Livingstone, and our own 
Stanley, reveal to us that it is swarming with intelligent people, far su- 
perior to the tribes which on the sea coast have been debased by in- 
cessant wars, waged for the capture of prisoners to be sold to the 
slave-traders ; that the population of the Continent is estimated at two 
hundred millions; that it is rich in arable lands and precious minerals; 
that navigable lakes and rivers traverse the interior, and that only 
civilization and enterprise(which are familiar to us, so that the products 
of them seem to us natural elements like fire and water), are required to 
introduce steamboats and railroads, and telegraphs. Then those vast 
resources which have been "hidden from ages and generations" shall 
be brought out and mingled with the commerce of the world, and the 
millions that now "sit in darkness" shall learn to live like men, and to 
die in hope of immortality ! • 

Among the first colonies of historic times were those planted by the 
Phenicians on the Northern shores of Africa, where France, nominally 
Christian, and thoroughly tolerant, has now her Colony of Algeria. 
England has unfurled her Red-cross banner at Sierra Leone on the West, 
at Cape Colony and Natal on the South, and Zanzibar on the East ; and 
America has her wutch-tower also in the cordon of Christian civilization 
which almost girts the Continent. The circumvallation about the 
stronghold of ignorance and degradation is well-nigh complete. Why 
do not these allied hosts interchange the signal of onset, and rise up> 
and go in, and possess the land for humanity, and for God ? Nay, why 



have not the civilization and enterprise of Europe, and America long 
since penetrated " the dark Continent," and brought its people, and its 
products into contact with the commerce of mankind ? I answer ; — first, 
because the reports of proceedings on the Coasts have made the tribes of 
the interior afraid to deal with the pale-faced and ruthless invaders from 
beyond the sea; second, because the climatic influences of the region 
have been regarded as fatal to the white race ; and finally, because hith- 
erto there have been no representatives of their own branch of the human 
family who in sufficient numbers have been uplifted by the civilization 
which they have rather seen than shared in other lands, and made will- 
ing to return to Africa, and there to do or to suffer for the regeneration 
of their "brethren after the flesh." When the Colonies of America and 
Great Britain, shall have trained or drawn to themselves from lands 
where they were once in bondage, and always in subserviency, Negro 
men of lofty hopes, and generous impulses, and practical education, and 
daring enterprise — then Central Africa will be reached by missionaries 
of civilization and religion ; its resources will be developed, and circu- 
lated ; its people will thrill with the sense of a new and higher life ; and 
the story of its estrangement from the great family of nations will pass 
away. I pity the man of the swarthy skin, who, entrusted with the 
clues of liberty and education, has no ambition to follow them when 
they lead out of darkness and doubt to such a destiny, — to possibilities 
of good for himself and his progeny, nowhere else to be enjoyed ! 

In the distribution of the human race, the sons of Ham were as- 
signed to Africa ; to its peculiarities of food and climate their constitu- 
tions are accommodated. A century of life in other climes has not ob- 
literated this natural adaptation. Experiment has proved that colored 
emigrants from America survive and flourish where men of another race 
lose vigor, sicken and die. They are the elected redeemers of their 
Father Land. It waits their coming: — it sent them forth with tears; it 
will receive them again with joy ! 

This Society, which once was impugned as an agent of domestic agi- 
tation, and again traduced as the enemy of the blacks, has in all time 
numbered among its supporters many of the distinguished divines, pat- 
riots and statesmen of our country. Its beneficent errand and work is, to 
aid worthy colored persons of either sex, and in any vigorous stage of 
life, who may desire to seek a home on the shores of that fruitful and 



pleasant Continent from which their fathers were torn away ; to help 
them in their outfit, and to secure them a freehold on their arrival. 

It is a noble, and far-reaching charity, conferring a blessing not only 
on its immediate recipients, but on their children and children's children, 
" even to the years of many generations;" — not only on these, but by 
them replenishing that well-spring of life and hope, in the desert, the 
overflow of whose waters will refresh, and gladden the waste places that 
lie beyond. And again, the civilization which through this medium 
shall reach at length to the waiting myriads in Central Africa will give 
back a reflected light to the source of its emanation, and the entire 
world will be brighter and happier when there shall no longer be a dark 
and dreary spot on all its habitable compass. 

I stood lately in Westminster Abbey, that Mausoleum of the mighty 
dead, at the spot where rest the weary feet of the great English Explorer, 
by whose adventurous journeys the world has learned so much of the 
"secret places" of the earth; and on Livingstone's monument which 
overhangs the place of his repose, I read the record of his prayer of- 
fered in loneliness in the wilds of Central Africa; and here I repeat it as 
my own in this place of concourse, "May Heaven's richest blessing come 
down on every one, American, English or Turk, who helps to heal the 
open sore of the world, Amen." 



EMMBsSiWmM W@ MMMMIM, 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



MERICAN 



OLONIZATION lOCIETY, 



tT«.n.xi.«.r-y 221, 1879. 



Genl. S. C. ARMSTRONG, 



Principal of Hampton Institute, Virginia. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON, CITY: 
Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1879. 



ADDRESS. 



What is the sentiment of the colored people of this country, the South 
especially, iu respect to making the United States their home, and in 
respect to emigration to Liberia ? 

A few evenings ago, I asked of the over two hundred young colored 
men and women who have come from thoughout the land, principally 
from the South, to the Hampton school for an education, what they 
thought of going to Liberia. A dozen hands went quickly up. I in- 
quired of each one the ground of his idea. A variety of reasons was 
given that, I believe, fairly illustrates the status of the negro mind on 
the Liberia question. 

One young man had, in the spirit of Christian discipleship, consecrat- 
ed himself to the work of preaching the gospel in that land ; several 
felt that in this country the negro never will be, as they expressed it, 
"free;" that the black man is and will be far from being free to 
all that is open to the white man, and that only in a land of their 
own can they be on even terms with all, and find the freedom which 
they seek. 

The students had heard of coffee culture in Liberia and of other in- 
ducements to go ; but, on the other hand, some were awaiting letters 
from friends who had gone over promising to write how they got on, 
but had never been heard from ; some had heard of great havoc among 
emigrants, and there was a general sense of insecurity and uncertainty 
as to that country. 

One fair-skinned, bright girl had an uncle who had organized sixteen 
churches in Liberia and was full of hope and enthusiasm . She meant 
to go as a missionary ; other young women had the same idea ; the great 



majority had no thought of emigration, and many had decided notions 
against the Republic. 

As a whole, the students of Hampton expect to remain in this coun- 
try, their idea being expressed by one who said "The colored man 
is better off here than anywhere else in the world." 

Our students have, more than once, been addressed by prominent 
Southern men who have said to them, in effect: "Many of you are 
Virginians; we must work together to build up this Commonwealth. 
We believe in this work of education ; you shall have your share of the 
school money and we will protect you in your rights." 

This is the tone of progressive men at the South, and their strength is 
indicated by the fact that, at least in Virginia, no Democratic candi- 
date dares venture, in his canvas for election to office, to denounce the 
public school system. 

The intelligent colored men and women who are honestly working for 
the real welfare of their people in the Southern States, are, so far as I 
know about them, winning the respect, good-will and moral support of 
the people of all classes, and in spite of many discouragements, are gen- 
erally cheerful and contented. Even the average freedman does not care 
to change his home. Yet, in some quarters, there are grievous com- 
plaints of hard times, poor pay and bad treatment, which create 
a desire for a place where living may be easier. 

It would be strange if among the four millions of Anglo-Africans 
there were not men of honest purpose, and good capacity, anxious to 
try a country of their own. The missionary idea is gaining strength 
every year. The little company of graduates from negro schools in 
America, one of them from Hampton, who are doing excellent work at 
the Mendi Mission, under the American Missionary Association, near to 
Liberia, is proof that the peculiar field of the enlightened freedmen of 
this country is not forgotten. 

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Bos- 
ton is looking to the South for men to enter the grand field opened up 
by Stanley whenever the means shall be in hand ; and I do not think it 
will seek in vain. 

Twelve years ago an earnest but unsuccessful effort was made by that 
Board to secure colored missionaries for Africa; yet there were many 
scores of educated negroes in the Northern States. 



We are likely, I believe, to find in the South the finest products of 
Anglo-African civilization, a better, simpler, more straight-forward de- 
velopment. Thence, not exclusively of course, will go across the sea 
the men who will best illustrate to the world the capabilities of their 
race. White men will get a large part of the money that is to be made 
from African trade, but I have faith that colored men will do their full 
share in the work of regeneration waiting to be done there, the 
need of which is the most piteous "Macedonian Cry" that ever was 
sent over to Christendom. 

Africa — Liberia as one of its open doors— is the field for an Anglo- 
African crusade. No other region is for a moment to be thought of 
compared with this. Just as, in the Providence of God, his people are 
set free, and the young and earnest and able among them are rising to a 
plane of Christian manhood and womanhood, the wonders and resources 
of the Dark Continent are unfolded. Who doubts the final triumph of 
right over wrong in the carrying back there of the very Christ to build 
up whose Kingdom the slave-hunters were unconscious agents. 

But there must be men and women of pure devotion and lives, of 
•clear, wise heads, and endowed with common sense. The requisition 
for common sense will be the hardest to fill. 

Among our colored people there is a discontented class; on edge with 
things here ; much occupied with its grievances, and, those of this class 
who are plucky and adventurous, are disposed to try the Colored Re- 
public. 

As things are here, the finer the cultivation of a colored man, the 
keener his sufferings — especially in the North, where his mental and 
moral wants are so lavishly supplied, but his social cravings neglected, 
and his tinted skin is a taboo from congenial association. I think I 
am right in stating that their advanced culture in America tends to 
skepticism. The old religious nature is, to an educated negro, with- 
ered by the pain that comes from finding that that which God made, 
his complexion, is as a sign set against him a — mark of degradation. 

Yet among the colored people themselves there is a prejudice of color, 
here unobserved, because overpowered by that of the whites which lumps 
together under its ban the purest black and the clearest white (provided 
a few drops of negro blood can be traced to the latter,) and by making 
common cause between them forces them into one social body. Remove 



6 

this pressure from the outside and those of pure and mixed blood become 
mutually jealous; the latter assuming a superiority by reason of the 
white or "Norman" blood in their veins, and the pure being proud of 
their purity. This is illustrated in Jamaica where the whites, col- 
ored and blacks are completely severed socially. A trustee of Libe- 
ria College told me that this question had given some trouble in the 
appointments at that institution, and it appears in Liberian politics. 
Going over there is not entire escape from prejudice of color. 

There was evinced, in my conversation with the students at Hampton, 
much curiosity about Liberia. They represent a class of negroes who 
take a very matter-of-fact view of that country ; they wish to ' ' better 
themselves," and in their pinching poverty, and in the money famine of 
the South, turn eagerly to brighter prospects. 

Wise, just treatment of the colored laborer in the South is far from 
universal. I never saw or heard of a successful Southern farmer who 
did not believe in negro labor as "the best in the world;" yet one of 
the leading agricultural journals says, "We are cursed with negro 
labor." 

The "darkey " is a convenient scapegoat for those who want to blame 
somebody if ends don't meet. Good, kind management and wise di- 
recting heads are indispensable to success with colored workmen, and 
that they don't always get ; the latter depend very much for the value 
of their labor upon favorable outward conditions, the frequent absence 
of which is to be expected in their circumstances. 

Liberia, as giving to the enterprising but discontented or ill-treated 
negro laborer scope and challenge for all his powers, is a most impor- 
tant factor in reconstruction. It is simple justice, very inadequate, but 
so far as it goes is a recognition of his claim to try the land he was torn 
from. 

Thirty years ago, statesmen like Clay and Webster talked of the na- 
tion's debt to the negro, and this inspired the Colonization scheme, 
which commanded a strong support from the South. After slapping 
the abolitionists in the face with their talk of right and wrong, a later 
generation freed the slave, as a war measure enfranchised him, used his 
vote as political capital, and, after squandering it, have left the burden 
of his education and improvement to the old slave-holders. The ac- 
count has not yet been squared. It is as true to day as it was thirty 



years ago that there is debt to the race brought here by violence and 
wrong, and a part of that debt is a fair chance in the land of their fathers. 

A difficulty in the Liberian question is the negroes' self-distrust. The 
race has sadly, perhaps inevitably, adopted the white man's idea of 
itself. It has, as a whole, no enthusiasm, no idea or sentiment. 

It lacks organizing power, guiding instincts. It has no genius for 
throwing and keeping uppermost its best and ablest men ; it has plenty 
of feeling, but no flow of it, no tendency to any clear and general end 
or purpose. Such tendency is developed slowly, by long experience, by 
•endless struggle with difficulty ending in victory, and that the citizens 
of Liberia have just commenced. The ex-slave is not easily allured to a 
country ruled by his own people. I have an impression that the Libe- 
rians are lacking, like the race here, in esprit de corps, in patriotic sen- 
timent and in strong administration. 

There should be accorded to the freedmen the widest opportunity to 
make for themselves homes on African shores if they choose to try it. 
I rejoice in the existence of the Colonization Society, believing in its 
work, the founding of an African Republic . I believe in it as a begin- 
ning not as an end; a hopeful beginning; a good showing for thirty 
years of effort. It is not a power ; but is it not a germ of power ? Gen- 
erations alone can answer this. To disparage it by contrast is to re- 
proach the negro for being unfortunate. It were better to blame the 
Almighty directly for His doings in permitting suffering, injustice and 
misfortune to exist. 

Give the negro a chance. You don't despise the tottering steps of a 
little child : time and hard knocks only can bring strength. Let the 
black man's slender self-respect stiffen by struggle, and his race pride 
gain by race effort. In the United States it is a curse to be black ; the 
highly educated negro is like a man without a country. Help him to 
make one for himself. 

The African race has been pushed suddenly from the depths of bond- 
age to the highest liberty; it has skipped centuries in the line of devel- 
opment. On its unaccustomed height it is confused; it is in its own 
way; easily victimized by bad men, and troubles are inevitable. 

Genuine progress is slow, and is the result not so much of struggle, as 
of successful struggle. The thing must not only be attempted, but it 
must be done, and there should be a century in which to do it. 



8 

When a Northern man recently asked me "Have the colored people 
improved in morals in the past ten years," I asked him, " Has New Eng- 
land improved in morals in the past ten years ? " Every stage of civili- 
zation has its peculiar difficulties aud nations forge slowly ahead. 

Progress is a moral rather than a material thing. All that is good in 
civilization is "The sum of the sacrifices of those who have gone before 
us." 

The African question, at bottom, is whether there will be enough men 
and women of that race who shall unselfishly and wisely devote them- 
selves to its welfare. Whatever shall be fine in their future will rest on 
this foundation of sacrifice. 

Has Liberia the men, or can she get them from here ? With them her 
future is assured, and she will move Africa. 
Ten such men would save her. 

The Colonization Society claims much for its success so far. Consid- 
ering that it has planted exotic ideas where men have for ages been fixed 
in the lowest conditions, the Republic may be considered a wonder. 
■Compare it with the early stages of Our own country's growth and there 
is nothing to discourage. 

We know too little about her. The roll of pamphlets sent me to read 
•contains no exhaustive statement of facts, but general expressions of 
praise. I never felt really informed about Liberia till I read the letters 
of Mr. Williams, correspondent of the Charleston News and Courier, 
whose mingled criticism and commendation made the Republic appear 
like any new terrestrial region, full of advantages and of disadvantages. 
For the first time I found what an intelligent man would say against it. 
There is need of a fair, forcible account of that country, with maps and 
pictures, that shall be to the colored man what a chart is to a sailor — a 
guide to success and a guard against disaster. 

How about colored communities in the United States ? 
A colony composed of the 450 manumitted slaves of John Randolph 
was, in 184G, placed in Miami County, Ohio. "They suffered much at 
"first from prejudice, yet soon found kind friends. While producing 
"nothing remarkable, the old have died off and the new generation has 
"made considerable advancement. They, however, owe more to exter- 
*'nal influences thau to inherent qualities." This statement I gleaned 
from an apparently reliable letter to the New York Tribune. 



There are negro communities of which I have no definite knowledge r 
notably one or two in Canada ; but all, I believe, were established by 
an influence from without. Certainly, in America, the negroes show no 
tendency in themselves to segregate. 

They drift to the cities in throngs, where their mortality increases and 
their self-respect, as a class, seems to diminish. 

In a simple, industrious, country life, the freedmen gain in numbers 
and in average prosperity and worth. 

Against this background of life in America, stands Liberia, attempt- 
achievements whose success its record here makes doubttul. 

Let us wait and see the negro on his own ground, on his own resour- 
ces, blundering away, but slowly learning from his blunders — as we all 
do — getting experience and digesting it. Let the negro race maintain 
a respectable republic, and it will furnish the best possible answer to 
the charge so often made, "The negro has done nothing." 



mm* 



AN ADDRESS 



HON. G. WASHINGTON WARREN, 

Delivered in Washington, D. C, 



Sixty-Third Annual Meeting of 

THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



JANUARY 20, 1880. 



Published by Request of the Society . 



WASHINGTON CITY : 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1880. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President : 

The American Colonization Society is distinguished from 
all other charitable and benevolent institutions in this, that it is or- 
ganized, and holds its place of business in the National Capital. New 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston and other large cities have or- 
ganized Societies which from those centres extend their operations 
throughout the country; and they have State Societies auxiliary to 
the American Colonization Society. But it is a significant fact, and 
indicative of the National and supreme importance of our Society, that 
it was founded here in Washington, that here it has held its Annual 
Meetings for nearly two-thirds of a century, and has during all this 
period, had its executive committee composed of eminent and patriotic 
men holding frequent sessions here, and diligently endeavoring to pro- 
mote its philanthropic objects. 

Again, this Society, more than any other in our country, has here- 
tofore held intimate relations with our National Government, and has 
been its selected agent in carrying out its most delicate and humane 
mission . After Liberia had been established on the western coast of 
Africa, by the far-seeing wisdom of the founders of the American Col- 
onization Society, whenever, during that darkest period of the slave 
trade, our ships of war seized a slave-ship, and brought her into an 
American port, the Government contracted with it to transport to and 
colonize the re-captured Africans in that home of the free. In the 
course of time, Liberia which had become the home of so many who had 
been snatched or redeemed from slavery, was an efficient and zealous in- 
strument in the cause of humanity, in breaking up that most detestable 
traffic. 



Every great nation has had its colonies. History is full of the settle- 
ments of new countries by peoples banished or voluntarily emigrating 
from their homes, and of the exactions made upon them as they grew 
up and flourished, but were still kept in subjection as tributaries to the 
mother country. Liberia is the only instance in history of a free and 
independent nation colonized by another country — not indeed by the 
Government, but by its incorporated Society, which thus has become 
the founder of a distant State, destined to have a leading influence in tin- 
Christianization of a Continent. It will be the province of History at 
some future period, to draw a parallel between the policy and aims, and 
their comparative results, of the East India Company and those of the 
American Colonization Society : the one founded upon the lust of personal 
gain and plunder, and for the extension of National dominion, the other 
solely in the interest of humanity and for the amelioration of a down- 
trodden race. 

If the United States has greatly developed her material resources by 
the enforced employment of the slave labor of those of African descent 
in the cultivation of what was once her chief staple, she not only 1ms 
expiated the National sin by the sacrifice of blood and treasure in the 
late war, resulting in emancipation, but she, as it were, made an atone- 
ment in advance by presenting to Africa the form and example of a 
free republic in Liberia. 

President Anthony W. Gardner, in his message addressed to the 
first session of the 17th Legislature of Liberia on the 10th of last month, 
depicts in glowing terms the auspicious omens of their National prosper- 
ity and their means of advancing the permanent interests of the 
neighboring peoples. He recommends the passage by the Legislatun 
of a resolution of thanks to the Government of the United States I'm 
sending the U. S. ship Ticonderoga at a critical juncture, and foi 
the friendly services rendered by her Commander, Commodore Shu 
feldt. He recommends liberal appropriations for the support of th( 
schools and the college, and favors the encouragement of internal im 
provements. Let me quote a few eloquent passages on the Missior 
of Liberia. 

"Permit me to remark to you, gentlemen constituting this honor 
able body, our duty to our Brethren of the Interior is providentially 
plain before us. Let us heed the Macedonian call now, lest we have cause 



when too late, to regret it. God in His overruling providence has inclin- 
ed and predisposed the hearts of our Aboriginal brethren toward us for 
good. Let me urge upon you the importance of heeding the divine 
monition, and of engaging in the work of enlarging our borders, and 
making strong our bands, by uniting with this intelligent people 
who like ourselves can read and write (though in a different language) 
and who occupy no mean rank in mathematical and classical literature. 
A people who for many generations have been free from the destructive 
effects of intoxicating drinks, and are therefore in the happy enjoyment 
of an unimpaired body and mind, an undwarfed manhood, and a soul 
that delights in the free worship and adoration of the Great God, the 
merciful and the compassionate. * * 

"The aboriginal tribes also in and about Cape Palmas with the ex- 
ception of the Bereby section, present a most encouraging and gratify- 
ing aspect. * * * * * * 

"From these references, gentlemen, your honorable body will be 
able to form some idea of the vast and favorable opportunities present- 
ed to Government for uniting our brethren of the tribes around and be- 
yond with ourselves, and thus laying the foundation of a powerful fu- 
ture State. * ****** 

"I am willing, gentlemen, and I believe you are, to follow the in- 
dications of the Great Arbiter of all events in the work of civilizing and 
evangelizing Africa. Who can divine the motive that induced the 
Mohammedan King, Ibrahima Sissi, to seek the co-operation of the Li- 
berian Government ? Who can foresee the sublime results that may 
hang upon the appeals echoing from the Barline, Mar, Soreka, and 
Grebo tribes, for a more intimate connection with Liberia in all her in- 
terests ? Admit that their motives are wholly selfish and mercenary. 
Admit that their object is only for gain; even in that case they will 
compare favorably with other nations and peoples on the globe who 
make a much louder boast of having higher aims in view than the mam- 
mon of this world. But can you positively assert that there may not be 
a background of the most thrilling events, pregnant with the highest 
interests of African elevation and redemption behind the scenes ? You 
cannot ; you dare not . 

"It seems to me that I can see in the call of the Mohammedan chief 
the fall, or the bowing of the crescent before the cross, at least, in Af- 



6 

rica. And who can tell the part that Christian Liberia is to play in 
this great drama ? Gentlemen, allow me to repeat, we have a great 
work before us, and it is our duty as a Christian Government to go for- 
ward, and do all we can in our day and generation, to bring about the 
grand result, not only for the unification, but the civilization and Chris- 
tianization of the thousands of heathen now sitting in darkness and in 
the region and shadow of death." 

In concluding this topic, he announces the Liberian policy to be, 
"Interior development; and the incorporation of the native tribes into 
the Liberian Body Politic." 

Mr. President, it would seem from reading these words, warm from 
the pen of the President of Liberia, and in the presence here of those 
who have grown gray in this cause, that our Society might hope for the 
speedy realization of the desire of its founders, and say with Simeon, 
of old, "Our eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared 
in the presence of all the people." 

Now is the glorious opportunity of this Society. What is wanted 
is, that through its officers and agents, at public meetings and through 
the press, it should make an appeal in earnest to the whole country. 

The apathy which has lately fallen upon our people with regard to 
helping on the African colonization cause is owing to a strange misap- 
prehension of our duty. We often hear it said, Your Colonization So- 
ciety did much good in the time of slavery in the South, but, since the 
day of emancipation, its mission is ended . The colored people have a 
right to stay here, and their labor is wanted here. If any wish to 
go to Liberia, let them obtain the means themselves. At any rate, 
it is no affair of ours; we are not responsible for their present condi 
tion. Now this position is untenable : we are all wrong. The fact is, 
the whole country, and every State, as part of the Union, is morally re- 
sponsible for the former existence of African slavery in the South, and 
the consequent present condition of the freedmen. All the old States 
agreed to the continuance of the slave trade for twenty years after the 
formation of the Constitution of the United States. Subsequently, the 
whole country became responsible for the enforcement of the law for 
the rendition of fugitive slaves from within its borders; and for those 
Northern statesmen educated in the North, who afterwards settled in 
Southern States, became Governors, or Senators and Representatives in 



Congress, and were most pronounced in their pro-slavery opinions and 
influence. We have only to remember that the late civil war was for 
the defense of the National integrity. Southern States claimed the 
right to secede. The North and West declared secession impossible— 
that our country was indivisible. By the grand result, we are all 
members of one body politic. If, therefore, one member suffers, all 
the other members suffer with it. If there is local disorder in one part, 
the other parts are affected. If the cholera or yellow fever decimates 
the population in one State, the other States send relief. If the Indian 
is wronged, the whole country moves for him. And so, the problem 
of the proper care of the freedmen is a problem for the whole Nation to 
solve. What the Government cannot or will not do, the people should 
be asked to supply. 

Now thousands upon thousands of the freedmen yearn to go to their 
fatherland. If we throw obstacles in their way, if we refuse to aid 
them, because they are wanted to till the soil and raise the profitable 
crops of this country, we are just so much partakers in the guilt of our 
ancestors who favored the bringing of the ancestors of the freedmen 
from Africa here, and placing them in bondage for their labor. 

The American Colonization Society has now a broader field than 
ever before, and it deserves a place among the missionary efforts and 
benevolent objects of the Christian community. By a zealous prosecu- 
tion of its missionary work, not only will Africa be brought more and 
more under the benign influence of Christianity, but the condition of 
the freedmen remaining at the South will be vastly improved, when it 
shall be known, that if they cannot fully enjoy the equal rights of citi- 
zenship, they may readily obtain the means of going to what they 
would deem a better country, where they could work out their own des- 
tiny as a distinct race, and could accomplish the greatest results under 
the most favorable conditions. We ask, therefore, for the sympathy, 
the moral support, and the generous aid of the whole country. 

And one word more ought to be said at this sixty-third Anniversary 
Meeting in the National Capital. Two things can the National Govern- 
ment, in the proper exercise of its constitutional functions, do for the 
cause of our Society. Congress can respond favorably to the able me- 
morial presented at its last session for an appropriation for explorations 
and surveys of the western coast of Africa, and from Liberia into Cen- 



8 

tral Africa, in the interest of commerce and civilization. And the Ex- 
ecutive might be authorized to employ some of the U. S. Steamships in 
carrying bi-monthly mails from one or more ports of the United States, 
so that, no longer we shall be dependent upon British steamers, via 
Liverpool, as a means of communication with the Republic we founded ; 
and that no longer we shall be in danger of losing our well-earned pres- 
tige on the African coast, by the superior enterprise and foresight of 
the British Government; but shall henceforth show ourselves able 
and willing to cherish and secure the commercial advantages which we 
were the first to develop. And shall not the plea of humanity be made 
and answered ? The United States, in her early history, lifted up her 
voice for the freedom of Modern Greece; she has repeatedly exerted 
her National power to rescue a naturalized citizen from the custody of 
his native country which claimed him as her subject. And will she not 
now grant this boon to those deserving freedmen who long for their 
fatherland, and to Liberia which has sprung from her very loins, and 
which promises to be a remedial power for the healing of the African 
Nations ? 



THE EXODUS: 

Its Effect upon the People of the South, 

Colored Labor not Indispensable. 



AjST address 



DEUVEI1ED BEFORE THE 

Board of Directors 



C 5 

9 



T? « 



.f .Jt 



JANUARY 21, 1880, 

— BY — 

Rev. C. K. MARSHALL, D. D., 

Of YlCKSBURG, Miss. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



washington city : 

Colonization Kooms, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1880. 






Extract from the Minutes of the Board of Directors of the 
American Colonization Society, at the Annual Meeting held in 
Washington, D. C, January 21, 1*80: 

" On motion, it was ^ 

"Resolved, That the thanks of the Board are hereby tendered to the 
Rev. C. K. Marshall, D.D., of Vicksburg, Miss., for his able, interest- 
ing, and instructive Address just delivered, and that he be requested to 
furnish a copy of the same with a view to publication." 

A true copy. 

Attest : William Coppinger, 

Secr< tary. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President : 

For many years I have taken a deep interest in the labors of 
the Society over which you so fittingly preside. I have studied 
its principles, watched with sympathy its achievements, and prayed 
for its success. At the South, since the war, we have been so 
rocked upon stormy billows, that we have not had the time or 
means to keep up our former interest in the Society, and it seems 
almost as if the Society and the South had mutually forgotten each 
other. 

Nevertheless the institution has survived the thousand perils of 
the past, and it is to-day a living entity — healthy, brave, and pre- 
pared for carrying on its work ; and to me it seems as if, though 
it is the sixty-third anniversary of your life, your real work has 
scarcely commenced. As a child, as a youth, it has been full of 
promise and has accomplished much, as some youths perform 
manly work before their beards are grown. But a new era has 
dawned upon this land ; old things have passed away — new things 
wear their shoes ; new forms of evil have arisen, and philanthropic 
men are looking to find appropriate remedies for them, while old 
grievances must be remedied by fresh and energetic measures. 

The South is no longer what it was when this Society was or- 
ganized. The Negro is no longer a bondsman. Nor yet is he 



*Note. — It is proper that I should say the address is the substance of 
what was said on the occasion of its delivery in the city of Washington, 
and, I regret to say, is my first contribution of the sort to the objects of 
the Society. Some points have been forgotten, others enlarged and hints 
amplified to bring out the suggestions which time did not admit of full 
utterance. It would never have been written but for the unexpected 
resolution passed by the Board asking for it. Imperfect and too hastily 
written, I yet consent to its publication in hope of its doing some good. 
The exodus I have somewhat encouraged, even to the West, hoping that 
its soil might prove an eye-salve to its blinded victims. C. K. M. 

Vicksbukg, Miss., January, 18S0. 



altogether a freeman. In his interest this Society specially toils. 
But our entire people — 40,000,000 of Caucasians — are alike bet- 
tered by your labors and victories. As the friend of the colored 
race I speak to you. I have lived among them ; preached to 
them ; witnessed their progress as slaves ; have seen their devel- 
opment into Christian character : watched the great improvement 
of their physical and social condition for half a century ; and I do 
not believe the peasantry of any country, ancient or modern, ever 
made so great progress in any ten decades as the negroes of the 
South have done; — nor do I believe any other peasantry ever 
enjoyed so much of life, or were so comfortably clothed, fed. and 
lodged. To no other peasantry has the Gospel ever been more 
faithfully preached, nor a higher type of churchmanship evolved. 
Still the Negro is less comfortable, less moral, less happy now than 
formerly, with exceptional cases. He has learned the multiplica- 
tion table, and forgotten his prayers. However, he is capable of 
great improvement, and ought to be furnished with a suitable field 
and proper facilities for the progress in education, religion, art. 
science, agriculture, and government of which he is capable. But, 
as the Rev. 31r. Bryant, the Liberian, who addressed the Society last 
night, observed most wisely and suggestively, " the Negro can never 
rise to any eminence or honor on the American Continent." The 
Caucasian lifts his unattainable altitude in his presence and over- 
whelms and disheartens him. Among millions of his own race, it 
would be quite otherwise. African citizenhood would furnish inspir- 
ing and possible standards of attainment, and he would gladly 
compete in the race for the higher prizes and places among his 
own people, while future years would perhaps lift a higher stand- 
ard still. Not only is the white standard discouragingly high as he 
now regards it, but his great change of relationships has not been 
satisfactorily favorable to his improvement. He was emancipated 
from commercial bondage to be enthralled in the meshes of polit- 
ical jugglery, and consequently he is still an article of trade. The 
ballot-hox is his bane. As a voter he can be transported to cold, 
inhospitable climes, and to conditions and surroundings utterly 
fatal to his well-being. Hence the present exodus. 

But I am far from believing in the disgraceful stories conjured 
up concerning the oppression, cruelty, outrage, and violence im- 
posed upon him in his Southern home. These falsehoods have been 
refuted over and again. Not that there mav not have been many 



discomforts and very little money made for a few years past, but 
in all these matters the white people have suffered far more than 
the blacks, and many of them have emigrated to other States in 
hopes of bettering their affairs. Yet no howl is heard for them. 
The causes of negro discontent are involved in no mystery, — are 
patent to every calm and unbiased observer. 

His confidence has been abused — his hopes blasted. Promises 
made to him remain as dead as they were when made. For prom- 
ised bread, he was given a stone ; for an egg, a scorpion ; for a 
fish, a serpent. Like great wealth thrust suddenly upon an inexpe- 
rienced and imperilled youth, emancipation naturally dazed him. 
Yesterday at the handles of the plow ; to-day at the helm of State. 
Yesterday an honored barber ; to-day the governor of a common- 
wealth. Yesterday a faithful coachman ; to-day a legislator. Yes- 
terday a humble, plain, respectful field-hand ; to-day a member of 
Congress. Poor yesterday and a thrall as well ; to-day he is court- 
ed, caressed, and taken into the confidence, the counsels, and the 
patronage of the learned, the powerful and great. Yesterday he 
drove a cart ; to-day he is a justice of the peace ; — not for his 
learning in legal lore, but for his African descent. Penniless to- 
day, he is told, and believes it, that to-morrow he "will receive 
from the general government forty acres and a mule." Alas ! to 
him it is all dead leaves and chaff. His elevation was transitory. 
His hopes were not realized. His pretended friends pledged, 
vowed, and promised — only to drop him on the cold rocks. The 
South, following the example of the North, has gradually reduced 
the negro to a plane as unimportant and as destitute of distinction 
as that of the negro of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New 
York. A thousand things combine to fill him with feelings of dis- 
content. He is now told of Kansas. Flaming pictures, and false 
as gaudy, are spread before him to show the ease, wealth, luxury, 
and independence of the black man in Kansas. Agents penetrate 
the whole South and preach the shining prospects of an exodus 
to Kansas. Fine houses, fertile lands, mules, money, and all de- 
sirable things await his arrival in the promised land — the Canaan 
of Kansas. 

Now, to me, Mr. President, this is a matter of very great signif- 
icance, — this unrest of the ex-slave. It is well-nigh universal. 
Many of the best conditioned, the most respected, and the most 
thrifty, have left homes and gone to Kansas and Indiana, while 



tens of thousands of American white families never tasted or knew 
anything equal to the comforts and advantages from which they 
have fled as "refugees." (?) We know that the grossest falsehoods 
have been employed ; we know that the most iniquitous measures 
have been adopted to stimulate the negro to emigrate. Still all 
that does not account for the phenomenon of general unrest. 
Birds of passage never migrate in June ; nor do they all rise at 
one signal and fly in a body. A few storks, a small number of 
cranes or swallows will lead off, and then a few more, before the 
final departure. Nor do they always abide in the fields or forests, 
lakes or streams where they may have first alighted for rest, or 
food, or exploration. 

So this exodus is, to my view, preliminary. A few thousands 
will take wing. But it is monitory, and must command the atten- 
tion of the political economist, the statesman, the churchman, and 
the planter. In all probability, New-Year's day on the morning 
of the 1st of January, 1920, the colored population in the South 
will scarcely be counted. Perished, emigrated, vanished. A few 
old people will linger, as the Cherokees do on their reservation 
in North Carolina, and a small number here and there who may 
still earn precarious bread as they pass away. Long before that 
period, ten millions of bales of cotton will be raised by white 
labor, and the manufacture of eight-tenths of the cotton fabrics 
will be the work of the South. But this exodus is out of season. 
•' The stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times ; and the 
turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the times of their 
coming." This exodus is a sort of abnormal flight in mid-summer. 
But the normal season may not be many decades in the future. 

However, I must glance over the past a little and trace the 
strange events that have culminated in the astonishing and signifi- 
cant facts which now environ us. 

The eyes of all the foremost nations of the w r orld are now fixed 
upon Africa as never before. Until a recent period that undiscov- 
ered continent was an iron-bound and steel -clasped Volume. 
Numerous bold, intelligent adventurers for ages fretted and filed 
its massive and resisting coverings and pried laboriously at its in- 
terlacing clasps — but all in vain. Other fearless endeavors of 
courageous men resulted in forcing the bindings and scanning the 
preface. 

.Now pause a moment and look in another direction. See (Hark- 



son and Wilberforce knocking, as original abolitionists, at the 
doors of the British Parliament, on the one hand, and African 
explorers, on the other, laboring to open and enter the hidden 
land. Both parties are alike repulsed. Then the doctrines of those 
leaders of the battle take root in American soil ; and the scenes 
of the Niger and the Parliament are in other forms re-enacted 
here. The demands of abolitionism are imperious and alarming 
as a new factor in American controversy, and rapidly growing to 
stalwart proportions. 

On the other hand stands the "American Colonization Socie- 
ty." The organization was the outgrowth of as pure an element 
of Christian philanthropy as ever moved the breasts of men. 
Disinterested almost beyond a parallel, its purposes and aims were 
at once so Christian, so benevolent, so practical, that the most 
eminent statesmen, civilians and divines, North and South, bestowed 
the influence of their names, their time and labor and money, to 
promote the grand work taken in hand. Emigrants are settled in 
Liberia. The colony becomes a reality ; its republican govern- 
ment a fixed fact. A great problem is solved. Still contending 
elements struggle for the mastery at home. Meantime explorers 
push their tents a little further inward on the barbarous coasts — 
but the book is not opened — Grod's hour has not struck ! 

Then came our war, rolling its fiery billows over the land "with 
confused noise and garments rolled in blood." But Livingstone is 
turning back the heavy lids of the mysterious Volume under the 
torrid blaze of Africa's equatorial suns, undisturbed by " the battle 
of the warrior." Years of fearful havoc rage and roll away. 

Finally the Union stands ! And with the Union four millions 
of slaves rise up divested of their ligaments of bondage. 

Then the world is startled and shocked at the news of the death 
of Livingstone in the African jungles. Nations mourn him dead 
and write his epitaph ! Not dead but lost ! This singular event 
made Stanley possible. He comes to the front with a mission 
more perilous than Jason s, seeking the golden fleece. A born 
explorer, — intrepid, persevering, intelligent ; the man for the emer- 
gency, he moves steadily on to victory. Livingstone survives ! 
Stanley is fired with new zeal for exploration, and soon lifts to 
view one of the sublimest spectacles any traveller ever achieved. 
His name will go down to the ages and generations as one of the 
greatest known geographical discoverers. Nor less remarkable 



is the fact that a young American, James Gordon Bennett, was 
the generous and philanthropic person who furnished the outfit 
and sustained and cheered the brave explorer. Livingstone, Ben- 
nett, Stanley ! What a trine of names ! Names which must live 
for ages among the millions of Africa and run like a golden thread 
through the songs, narratives, and orations of the coming genera- 
tions of enlightened African peoples. Brothers in noble deeds — 
a unit in fame — their memories are embalmed in the grateful 
benedictions of the civilized world. Africa is redeemed ! The 
formidable clasps are ground to powder, the massive coverings 
torn away, and the mystic Volume laid open to the inspection and 
perusal of all nations. 

Let us now return home and observe another and most signifi- 
cant event, as an important item in this singular combination. 

After the conflict of arms the South was too impoverished to 
render any considerable aid to the education of the young freed- 
man. However, assistance came. Nine universities and near- 
ly thirty colleges have already been established for the fullest 
practical development of the freedman's capabilities. More re- 
cently the Southern States have contributed by legislative appro- 
priations for his education. Five hundred young men of African 
blood will be graduated annually from these schools in the near 
future ; then a thousand, and so will they probably continue in- 
creasing for years to come. 

Now comes unrest; now a strange desire for a permanent home — 
a final abode — a national autonomy. 

The sentiment may take on multifarious shapes as the mind is 
capable of greater or lesser grasp. But migration will from this 
time forward, in some form or other, from one or many and quite 
dissimilar motives, become the significant event among the peo- 
ple of African descent. 

Migration is the normal condition of the human race. It is the 
founder of nationalities. It is the fertilizer of decaying races. 
It is the almoner of science and literature. It is the parent of 
commerce ; the civilizer of barbarians and savages ; the hope 
of the unfortunate and the refuge of the down-trodden. It is the 
Christianizer of all peoples. It commenced at the gates of Eden, 
and its pilgrims are still moving on, asking the way to a resting- 
place and a home. It will be the salvation of Africa. As the 
colored people increase in knowledge, as the number of educated 



men and women increase, they will naturally desire a field for the 
employment of their abilities. They are ambitions ; they are 
progressive ; they are capable. Many instances illustrative could 
be furnished, but I aim at too great brevity to rehearse them. 
Suffice it to say that in the languages, in mathematics, in architect- 
ural and mechanical drawing, in manufactures, and many other 
branches of knowledge and labor and learning, they have taken 
the Southern people — the most intelligent of them — by surprise. 
What then ? Unrest ! And why ? Because he has culminated ; 
and as a politician, as a molder of the fortunes of the people, 
he is rapidly declining. Wax and wane he may, but he will 
chiefly wane. And ten thousand Negro scholars, many of whom 
will be capable of professorships in respectable colleges, will only 
find a support (as some are now doing) in the dull round of plan- 
tation laboi% far from educated companionship and congenial asso- 
ciations. Trades they cannot learn. Ask the "trades-unions" of 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore how many Negroes 
belong to them ? How many Negroes in the old free States are 
apprenticed to learn printing, shoemaking, carving, carpentering, 
engraving, paper-making, telegraphing, engineering, or any other 
mechanical pursuit ? Nearly none ; practically none. White men 
in the South are intermingled in those pursuits and vocations with 
emigrants from the North, and they brought their theories and 
demands of the trades-unions with them, so that American senti- 
ment in those imperious unions on these questions is a unit. The 
Negro is excluded from learning trades. Briefly, view the situa- 
tion from what point of the political, social, and industrial com- 
pass you may, the Negro must forever remain a dwarf on Ameri- 
can soil. 

Senator Windom says the Negro is or has been "the foot-ball of 
politics." And his experiments on the "ball" entitle his opinions 
to great consideration. The natural state of a " ball " is motion. 
And the same service and uses of the " ball " heretofore will here- 
after and to the bitter end be the rule. The contending forces 
will seize or repel the vagrant " ball," kicking it hither and thither, 
as long as it is a political factor. It is this base use of the colored 
man that re-enslaves him. He asks for real freedom, but only 
a sort of tantalizing nebulous thing is attained, North or South. 
Each generation will decline in manhood, in aspiration, in refine- 
ment, in real ability and solid comfort where he now frets out his 



8 



weary days without any hopes of a really noble future. White 
labor will — must take his place. 

Three-fifths of the 900,000 bales of cotton made in Texas in 
1879, as I am informed by an intelligent citizen of that State, were 
made by white labor, and the cotton made by the Germans com- 
manded one cent per pound more than the cotton raised by the 
Negro. And what is true of Texas is soon to be realized in facts 
and figures in other States. And if this is an over-estimate, the 
forthcoming census report will place the matter correctly before 
us. Planters have testified to the fact that some of the best crops 
of sugar raised in Louisiana have been made by white labor. 
Indeed, almost every nation is represented in the out-door labor 
of the Southern States, and it will rapidly increase. It is the last 
and only security of the South, and her path to prosperity, honor, 
and peace. 

Now. sir. put all these grave and telling considerations together, 
and then say if it is wonderful that disquiet, disappointment, and 
unrest should arise in the ranks of the freedman, or that he should 
wish to try some new field of growth and improvement, in hopes 
of advancing to a higher destiny. Nor should our citizens in the 
cotton and sugar regions be surprised if the theory of emigration 
so well-nigh universally discussed among the dark race should 
finally crystallize into a fixed purpose to make the experiment on a 
grand scale. And perchance in the end it will be found that the 
strange impulse, like the November throbbings of the hearts of 
migratory birds touched by a mysterious hand, shall indicate the 
arrival of the tardy hour when some anointed leader shall step to 
the front and speak : "Arise ; let us depart hence, for this is not 
our rest." Kansas and the West and the present exodus thereto 
are premature and premonitory, but preliminary and prophetic. 

.Now. .Mr. President, what have we seen ? We have seen Africa 
robbed of her children. Like the Babylonish garment and the 
wedge of gold, the robbery was bold, dastardly, complete. Her 
sons were sent round the world and sold in the shambles. Tt was 
Achan's theft. But evil fell on the people among whom the spoils 
were kept. It was not the crime of the South ; it was the crime of 
America ; it was the fearful crime of England. It was the terrible 
and inexcusable transgression of the Achan of a sinister, impious, 
and (Jod-defying civilization. 

What next ? Four millions of free and comparatively educated 



barbarians. They may not know geometry and Greek, but they 
have acquired muscle, manners, manliness, practical sense, busi- 
ness habits, the language of Shakspeare and Washington, the taste- 
ful uses of apparel, the arts of cookery, house-keeping, sewing, 
nursing, waiting, and, in waiting, they have learned and caught the 
best ideas, the greatest facts, the most valuable suggestions, and, 
as a sort of confidant, were taken into the interests, the esteem, 
the love, and honor of the master, the mistress, and the household. 
All this, however, did not atone for Achan's guilt. It is a Babylon- 
ish garment ; it is a wedge of gold. 

Then we see Clarkson and Wilberforce in England, like Joshua, 
calling for the restoration of the spoils ; while Mungo Park, the 
Landers, and others were preparing for the birth of a new world 
and the restoration of the exiles to their own native homes. Af- 
terward came Livingstone, Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, Baker, 
Cameron, and De Serpa Pinto, who, by their marvellous heroism, 
self-sacrifice and devotion, have opened " the land of darkness as 
darkness itself," so that from the Equator to the Cape of Good 
Hope the way will soon be prepared for planting every enterprise 
and establishing every mission the Christian world may undertake. 

What now do we find as a coincidence so significant that no 
thoughtful philanthropist can undervalue it? We find, sir, The 
American Colonization Society in the sixty-third year of its 
successful labors, a living power, and a great Christianizing and 
emigrating agency. Sir, your Society has solved every problem of 
African colonization. You have been performing a work as j>rovi- 
dential as any that goes to make up the wonderful movements in the 
onward progress of the Negro problem. Liberia, with its healthy, 
prosperous, useful population, many of whom were once slaves in 
this country, is your answer to all fault-finders, critics, and calumni- 
ators, as it is an imperishable monument to the wisdom of your 
founders and the fidelity, zeal, and perseverance of their successors 
in the laborious offices of your Society. 

Sir, I regard the discoveries in Africa, the emancipated Negro, 
and the American Colonization Society, with its experience and 
achievements of sixty-three years, as the peerless triumvirate of 
the nineteenth century. Your Society is nearly twice as old as the 
American Missionary Societies for Africa, but, truth to say, is itself 
a missionary society, and the parent of a large progeny of African 
church missions. 



10 



Mr. President, it seems to me that your Society has just reached 
the period in its growth and strength when its principal work is to 
commence ; and what a work ! 

African explorers have laid a continent at your feet with a pop- 
ulation of more than 200,000,000 of souls. It possesses untold 
resources in dye-woods, cotton, sugar, coffee, corn, rice, ginger, 
indigo, tobacco, copper, gold, silver, iron, coal, diamonds, ivory, 
gums, and birds and beasts, which in all past time have possessed 
great commercial value. Her rivers are large, deep, and navigable 
for great distances, and the Nile, Congo, Niger, and Zambesi are 
now ready to bear the commerce of any people bold enough and 
enterprising enough to accept the boundless treasure. Soils the 
richest and most productive in the world lie by millions of square 
miles in their virgin state. No plow has disturbed the slumber of 
its valleys and plains since the morning stars sang together over 
the birth of the world. That vast bonanza of continental wealth 
is to be developed and utilized, and its myriads of untaught and 
benighted peoples are to be Christianized and taught the arts, 
sciences, and literature of which they are capable, and a new 
world is to be harnessed to the sisterhood of great nationalities — 
as if the lost Pleiad had at last returned from banishment and 
exile to the bosom and home of the rejoicing family. Every day 
new stores of information will be flashed over the cable and out 
of the morning journals of the hitherto unheard of findings and 
progress of explorers, and we may look for wonders still greater 
than any that have heretofore astonished us. Commercial claims 
will force on us the study of the physical geography of that land, 
and from new tribes and unknown kings we may soon receive 
solicitations for teachers and missionaries, as King Mtsei desired 
Stanley to call for teachers of the true religion for his people. 

Sir, thus far Liberia has done nobly. But it may be the dictate 
of wisdom to plant another and an interior colony on the Con- 
go, or on the Niger. The place will soon speak for itself, if the 
measure shall be deemed advisable. Obtain an expanded, well- 
watered territory, as large as Texas, if need be ; let it be in a 
healthy country, with ready access by steamers, favorable for the 
culture of the soil and commercial intercourse with the natives ; 
let a great city be laid off for the capital ; give farms and imple- 
ments of husbandry, as far as practicable, to farmers, and town- 
lots to mechanicians, teachers, and diligent families who can 



11 



Lake care of themselves in the city ; make it the Jerusalem of 
missions, the domicil of their Boards of management, and hanks 
for the deposit of their funds, and the point of departure for 
their steamers, and the center of their railroad system. In the 
sure day that may come sooner than we think, New Orleans may 
see her rival in commercial opulence near the mouth of one 
of these great African rivers ; Chicago see her peer lift the monu- 
ments of commercial splendor on the shores of one of those 
migjity lakes of recent discovery ; while, like a new St. Louis, 
the capital of the new-born nation shall sit as a queen and rule 
over a regenerated republic of the Africans, for the Africans, by 
the Africans. Establish schools, colleges, universities, and open 
the way for the education of the natives and the renovation of the 
race. Abolish the polyglottal gibberish in which the natives bab- 
ble, and fasten the English language to their lips. With few 
exceptions, these languages hoard no learning, and are almost as 
grammarless as the vernacular of the paroquet. 

Unless the forty new institutions of learning recently established 
in the South for the education of the colored people have Africa 
clearly in view as an ultimate end, they will prove of compara- 
tively little value to the race, as such. 

To merely turn out hundreds of educated colored men and 
women to float at large over the South, with Homer in one pocket 
and a shoe -brush in the other, or with Euclid in one hand and a 
coach- whip or a table-napkin in the other, is to minimize the whole 
scheme of Negro education and open the way to make the condi- 
tion of real culture worse than the days of bondage. 

We have already met several cases of young colored men on 
whose education fond and hopeful parents had bestowed many a 
hard-earned dollar, saved in bitter self-denial and sore privations 
to pay for grammars and dictionaries for Virgil and Horace and 
Euclid, who, after all, were like a man I knew who built a mill 
upon the banks of a stream that strangely dried up before a wheel 
was ever turned. 

Open a continent to the capacities, ambition, and learning of 
the young men who want to be useful and lay a permanent foun- 
dation for the prosperity of their race, and centuries will be 
required in which to compute the beneficent results of their labor. 

Africa, the Rachel of nations, has long mourned the robbery 
and enslavement of her offspring. Let her not forever weep. 



V2 



stain. She shall see them again. And she shall be 
comforted and compensated by the physical, mental, and moral 
improvement their American school, in two hundred years, has 
upon them. For they will return \rith abili: 

as ible of attainment on the dark continent. They 

will return to the land of their sires not as - s. benighted 

rians : nor will they go pent and packed up in slave-ships 

culprits _ :ilty of the crime of having 

:".: a price fixed upon their heads, and terrorized by 
heartless piratical brokers in human flesh who will regard them as 
a mere legal tender. No : they will return with stalwart ph 
forms, manly vigor — womanly culture, refinement, and 
They will carry a higher type of g nee and a wider 

were ever dreamed of by their most enlightened 

- : a knowledge of - agriculture, mech.. 

law. medicine, and divinity. They will go back with the Bible, 
the Hymn-book, the Prayer-book — wit burch and its holy 

sacraments — the holy Sabbath with its inspiring sane::" — 
the knowledge of the one true God. and J - adorable 

jr. And in their new home, amidst its fragrant bowea 
in the temples reared for worship. Heaven will bow I hear 

their prayers and the f: : with their songs. They 

will build the school-house, the college, the univer- 

periodicals from their own presses, cloth from their own 
looms, machinery from their own manufa ; " ries, si - from then- 
own shops, coin from their own mi \ es of mereh 
from their own wh;.: :rom their own courts, and 
from their own Congress 

says of the casting a- Israel, that 

the reconciling of the world: and if so. then 11 the re- 

ceiving of them be And if casting out 

from his native home of the I and power! - in has 

been .ment of the world, what shall his restoration be 

but the dead. "1 r the Lord 

shall comfort his people : He will comfort all he: .aces, 

and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like 
the garden of the Lord : joy and gladness shall be found therein : 
thank- nd the voice of melody." Yea: The wile 

and solitary place shall be glad for them, and the .il re- 

joice and blossom as th- :a the wilderness shall t 



13 



break out, and streams in the desert," and "the parched land shall 
become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water;" and "the 
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with songs and ever- 
lasting joy upon their heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness, 
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 

If, then, it is the purpose of God that the colored people of this 
continent shall become the great civilizers, apostles, and teachers 
of the millions of their ancestral home, who call to them in the 
beseeching accents of the Macedonian necessity, is it not plainly 
our duty to facilitate their endeavor and bid them God -speed? 
If they believe they can improve their condition by emigration, 
let us put no obstruction in their paths. If enticed to an uncon- 
genial clime, and for purely political ends, we may discourage and 
counsel them against the fearful horrors that await them. The 
West in rags and midwinter is murder, and thousands must perish 
who try it. Birds that migrate without a leader, and before the 
normal season, generally fall a prey to nets, and snares, and shot. 

The colored man deserves well of the South. She has done and 
is doing her best for him. Better she never will — she never can 
do. If, then, he resolves to depart, he must not only depart 
in peace, but go — not to frozen zones, not to a repelling popula- 
tion — not to a remote place of mere ballot-boxes, "foot-ball'' 
manipulators, and the bed and board of the Prodigal Son — not to 
regions where, like a horse-block, he may help every adventurer to 
mount to the saddle, but never be permitted to mount himself. 
Bather let us "show unto them a more excellent way." Let us 
see to it, if they will depart, "that as far as in us is" we will assist 
them to find and settle in "a land flowing with milk and honey," 
where they will become the princes among their peoples, stand 
up as the peers of the most exalted, and lay the foundations for a 
continent to build upon for ages and generations to come. How 
grand a mission ! 

Finally, sir, there remain certain things we may aim to accom- 
plish. It may take years, but "The American Colonization 
Society"' never dies. Among these — pardon my temerity — are : 

1. The correction of the false impressions existing respecting 
the aims and purposes of your Society. A new generation has 
come up since the chief men of the South, in church and State, 
were its advocates, supporters, and officers. . 

2. Be-enlist the chief clergymen of all denominations, with the 



14 



colored bishops and teachers, in the work of directing those who 
desire to emigrate from the South to the superior advantages of 
Africa. 

3. Let as many colored people as desire become members of 
branch organizations, and thus enter upon a calm, rational study 
of the philosophy of emigration. It would prevent rash move- 
ments, lead to economy, and open a future at least for their chil- 
dren. 

4. At a suitable time application must be made to Congress for 
assistance in removing families to Africa. What is the government 
going to do with 65,000,000 of dollars taken from the planters in 
the darkest hour of destitution and trouble by the clearest viola- 
tion of the Constitution ? It is known as the cotton tax. A hand- 
some proportion of that great sum was collected from some millions 
of bales of the last cotton that was made by slave labor. Perhaps 
one-third of it could and should — but never will — be returned to the 
proper parties. It is safe to say that two-thirds of it will never go 
out of the Treasury — if one dollar ever does — as a restored col- 
lection. Huge obstacles stand in the way. I am annoyed ; for I 
am a loser. But may not some compromise be agreed upon and 
the proper thing done, if the Negro wants to leave, that he may go 
under cheering auspices ? 

5. Should public-spirited and liberal citizens favor a new col- 
ony in the interior, let it be encouraged. It may rejuvenate and 
inspire the feeble energies of many warm friends who need to be 
lifted out of worn grooves into new, fresh, and energetic measures. 
Liberia would profit by it. 

G. It has long been a felt want for direct shipping to the west- 
ern coast of Africa from our own ports. American competition 
in the English markets, under the very shadow of the British Par- 
liament, led an English statesman to say, recently, that Africa was 
a new market and would take all her surplus goods. Very well. 
American enterprise will carry goods from New York to Zanzibar 
and to Timbuctoo, and must do it. Then a cheaper and more 
direct passage will aid in the work of emigration. 

7. In order to prepare young colored people for successful col- 
onization, every possible branch of labor, trades of every sort, and 
the arts necessary to the building of comfortable communities and 
families, should be taught in all the colored schools, if practicable. 

Sir, doubtless all these matters have been revolved over and again 



15 



in the discussions of this Society, but, as I said, they have been 
lost sight of with the passing away of the giants who once stood 
up all over the South like colonnades of Corinthian pillars, at 
once the support and the ornament of our commonwealths. 

No doubt opposition to the views I have uttered will be mani- 
fested. Not, however, by those who comprehend the necessities, 
the perils, and the fortunes of the fast-coming future. Nor will 
great numbers of colored people at once give up the false views 
they have long entertained. But a better day will conic, and in- 
telligent colored people will heed the signal of the divine hand. 
Africa shall be made new by the restoration of her banished sons, 

And every breeze that blows shall waft 
Her loner-lost wanderers home. 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



President. 

1853. Hon. JOHN H. B. LATROBE. 

Vice Presidents. 



1838. Hon. Henry A. Foster, N. Y. 

1838. Hon. James Garland, Virginia. 

1841. Thomas R. Hazard, Esq., R. I. 

1843. Hon. Lucius Q. C. Elmer, N. J. 

185 1. Rev. Robert Ryland, D. D., Ky. 

185 1. Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, D. C. 

1853. Hon. Horatio Seymour, N. Y. 

1853. Edward McGehee, Esq., Miss. 

1854. Rev. Matthew Simpson, D. D., Pa. 
1854. Rev. Levi Scott, D. D., Del. 
1854. Rev. Robert-Paine, D. D., Miss. 
1854. Rev. James C. Finley, Illinois. 
1854. Hon. John F. Darby, Missouri. 
.1854. Hon. Joseph B. Crockett, Cal. 
1859. Hon. Henry M. Schieffelin, N. Y. 
1861. Rev.J. Miclean,D.D.,LL.D.,N.J. 
1861. Hon. Ichabod Goodwin, N. H. 
1861. Hon. William E. Dodge, N. Y. 

1866. Hon. James R. Doolittle, Wis. 

1867. Samuel A. Crozer, Esq., Pa. 
1869. Hon. Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, N.J. 
1869. Rev. S. Irenaeus Prime, D.D., N. Y. 



870. Robert Arthington, Esq., England. 
872. Rev. Ed. P. Humphrey, D. D., Ky. 
872. Harvey Lindsly, M. D., D. C. 
874. Rev. Randolph S. Foster, D.D.,Mass. 
874. Rt. Rev.Wm. B. Stevens, D. D., Pa. 
874. Hon. Eli K. Price, Pennsylvania. 
874. Rt. Rev. Gregory T. Bedell, D. D.,0. 

874. Theodore L. Mason, M. D., N. Y. 

875. Levi Keese, M. D., Mass. 

875. Rt.Rev.M.A.DeW.Howe,D.D.,Pa. 

875. Samuel K. Wilson, Esq., N. J. 

876. Rev. Samuel E. Appleton, D. D., Pa. 
876. Rev. Jabez P. Campbell, D. D., Pi. 

876. Rev. H.M.Turner, D. D.LL.D.,Ga. 

877. Prcst. E. G. Robinson, LL. D., R. I. 
877. Rev. J. F. Elder, D. D., New York. 

877. Rev. W. E. Schenck, D. D., Pa. 

878. Hon. Richard W. Thompson, In 1. 

878. Com. R.W.Shufeldt.U. S.N. , Conn. 

879. Hon. G. Washington Warren, Mass. 
880 Francis T. King, Esq., Maryland. 

880. Rev. S. D. Alexander. D. D., N. Y. 



The figures before each name indicate the year of first election. 



gltttracan (Colonisation gjoctetg. 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C. 



President— Hon. JOHN II. B. LATROBE. 
Secretary and Treasurer— WILLIAM COPPlNGER, Esq. 

Executive Committee. 

Dr. Harvey LlNDSLY, Chairman. 
William Gunton, Esq. Judge Charles C. Nott. 

Hon. Peter Parker. Reginald Fendall, Esq. 

James C. Welling, LL. D. Rev. T. G. Addison, D. D. 



TOEM OP BEQUEST. 

I give and bequeath to The American Colonization Society the 
sum of dollars. 

(If the bequest is of personal or real estate, so describe it tliar it can 
easily be identified.) 



EMIGRATION TO LIBERIA. 

So numerous have the applications become, that The AMERICAN 
Colonization Society will hereafter give the preference, all other 
things being equal, to those who will pay a part or the whole of the cost 
of their passage and settlement in Liberia. Persons wishing to remove 
to that Republic should make application, giving their name, age, and 
circumstances, addressed to William Coppinger, Secretary and Treas- 
urer, Colonization Rooms, Washington, D. C. 



EDUCATION IN LIBERIA. 
The American colonization" Society is ready to receive, invest, 

and set apart, for (lie promotion of common-school education in Liberia, 
all such sum or sum- of money as may be given or bequeathed to it for 
thai purpose. 

Funds for LIBERIA COLLEGE may be remitted to CHARLES E. 
Stevens, Esq., Treasurer, No. 40 State street, Boston. The best form 
of donations and bequesls is "THE TRUSTEES of DONATIONS coii 

Km cation in Liberia." 



Thomas ifcGill A Co., Printers, Washington, D. f \ 



The United States Government, the Found- 
er and Necessary Patron of the 
Liberian Republic. 



-A.HST .A-IDIDIRylESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



tttifWittt ^Unhittf^n ^h\^ 



JANUARY 18, 1881, 



BY 



GEORGE W. SAMSON, D. D. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON CITT; 

POLONIZATION ^UILDING, 45O PENNSYLVANIA ^VENUB, 

l88l, 



f 



NOR*AL SCBM L BXKl 
H*lOT0S Va. 



ADDRESS. 



"When intelligent business men arc seen to be directing their capital 
into some new field of enterprise, they arc supposed to have reasons 
justifying their investment. When leading nations are observed 
to be conspiring in making government appropriations for the common 
attainment of a like end, it is justly inferred that some adequate motive 
controls their policy. So, too, the principles of natural religion, the 
convictions of all men, lead to the necessary conclusion, that, the Divine 
Author of all, rules alike the material Universe and the families of man- 
kind in their intercourse with each other for the accomplishment of 
His own wise and kind purposes. 

The fact that no less than nine leading powers of Europe, — England, 
France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Rus- 
sia, — have been engaged the past year in African explorations, certainly 
indicates a common and an important end which those nations, leading 
in modern civilization, arc seeking to attain. The summary, so concise- 
ly and clearly presented in a recent publication of the Secretary of the 
American Colonization Society, aids the ordinary observer of foreign 
affairs to analyze and group the reasons that have led to this converging 
of interests on the Continent of Africa. 

There are three classes of corporate bodies that arc providing the 
money appropriations which sustain and promote these explorations; the 
two former of which have been sustained by Government action. First 
in natural order arc commercial companies; since it is through commerce 
that the shores and ports of foreign lands arc made known, and because 
the want of products, for the bodily welfare of advanced nations is the 
first to prompt enterprise. Second in order come scientific associations, 
including geographical and archaeological societies, whose explorations 
have the double end of opening roads to commerce and of amassing 
knowledge, interesting or profitable to men as intellectual beings. 
Third in the list appear religious societies ; including educational and 
missionary organizations. 

This grouping of organizations that have been penetrating the con- 
tinent of Africa on all sides for years, and that have displayed special 
completeness and activity during the past year, naturally suggests in- 
quiry as to the originating spring, the fundamental source, and espe- 
cially the harmonizing and all-controling influence in human nature, 
which prompts the united action of these classes of associations and the 
favoring co-operation of the nine governments of Europe which havo 



sustained the two former in their work . Without doubt it is to bo 
found in the principles brought out by such masterly works on the 
philosophy of history as Guizot's Progress of Civilization in Europe. 
There are, as Guizot shows, two elements that constitute and that ad- 
vance human civilization, the material and the moral. The material 
interests and the physical impulses of men prompt them to the supply 
of animal wants by the accumulation of wealth and through that of all 
the conveniences and comforts of bodily life. The moral interests aud 
the mental impulses prompt to the accumulation of knowledge as*to all 
the social and religious relations of mankind and to the supply provided 
in the teachings of nature and of revelation which meets those wants. In 
this analysis the great statesman, Guizot, accepts all of truth brought out 
by such minds as Buckle, Comte aud Spencer; who in their 3eclusion see 
clearly what men ought to be in their relations to the world and to each 
other ; and what they would be provided they partook only of the na- 
ture of mere animals or of pure angels. But the practical man of af- 
fairs, mingling witli men in their social, political aud religious rela- 
tions, fiuds that men partake of both the auimal and the angelic na- 
tures; that these two natures, which "war within us," and which lead 
to "wars and fightings among men," must be harmonized; otherwise 
neither the passive quiet of herded animals nor the active peace of 
banded angels, will be found in human families, communities and na- 
tions. Going farther, with the fearful experience of communistic an- 
archy fresh and frequent before his own eyes, Guizot saw, as also Eng- 
lish and American statesmen have seeu, that men need, not simple accu- 
mulation of wealth, but the guarantee in man's improved moral instruc- 
tion, moral training and religious enlightenment, that the accumulation 
of individual wealth and of national treasures in art, in science and in 
all the appliances of human advancement, will not in the frenzy of a day 
be plundered or destroyed. It is this ruling necessity which in the ex- 
plorations of the past year on the continent of Africa, has caused com- 
merce, science aud religion to go baud in hand. It seems to be timely 
to review, at this sixty-fourth anniversary of the American Colonization 
Society, the necessary union of Governmental and Associatioual co-op- 
eration in repaying our National debt to Africa. 

The consideration of this topic requires a brief review of the assum- 
ed relation through the mother country of the American Colonics, and 
then of the independent United States of America, to the people ol 
Africa. 

As Bancroft has clcariy shown the Government and people of Great 
Britain, more truly than of Spain, sought two ends in bringing African 
slaves into this country. As Governor Brown, of Georgia, has just re- 
peated in the United States Senate, the people of Georgia, who at first 
resisted the attempts to introduce African slaves into that colony, yield- 



ed at last because of tlic conviction, urged by sucb men f>s Gcorgo 
Whilefield, that the only apparent means of enlightening and Christ- 
ianizing the penple of Africa, who in their native land were waning 
against and enslaving each other, was to receive and educate them as 
laborers on the rich lands of t lie South. At the same time, Jonathan 
Edwards, whose sincerity none will doubt, urged the same idea, and as 
a motive to Christian fidelity in evangelizing the colored people iu New 
England. 

When the colonial times had passed a new relation was assumed by 
the state and national governments to the colored people. New Engl md 
provided with laborers from I lie old world and moved by convictions 
of moral duty, freed her slaves; some of whose descendants yet linger 
in her huge towns. The duty, however, of educating and Christianiz- 
ing, and if dependent, of providing homes and food for these frecdmen, 
remained, and was met by state legislation. The Southern States, dif- 
crcntly situated, retained their colored people in servitude; often indeed 
making provision for emancipation by individuals, as well as for tho 
care of freed people; and, above all, through the fidelity of Christian la- 
borers winning to a sincere Christian faith a larger proportion of tho 
colored people than has ever before been found among any people iu 
any age. 

At the same time the national as well ns state governments, recogni- 
zed and assumed a new relation to the colored people. The provision 
of the U. S. Constitution limiting the importation of slaves to twenty- 
one years, was not only an assumed relation, but it implied and com- 
pelled another assumed duty when the twenty-one years had expired. 
The anxious thought and effort of the successive Presidents, Jefferson, 
Madison and Monroe, to provide a fit asylum for slaves brought to Amer- 
ican ports after the year when the importation was to cease, not only 
suggested, but, after various expedients compelled the naval expeditions 
repeatedly sent, first to explore, then to colonize and then to protect 
the colonists on the shore of Africa. 

Another new relation was assumed, when, after years of ineffectual 
efforts in co-operation with Great Britain to arrest slave-ships by means 
of national cruisers on the African coast, the American cruisers wero 
directed to act on the American shore of the Atlantic, while the British 
cruisers acted on the African Coast. Then, since the naval vessels wero 
no longer detailed for the long voyage, the American Colouizition So- 
ciety was made the agent of the United States government in sending 
the recaptured slaves to Liberia and in providing a safe asylum and a 
school for independence on the coast of their native Continent. Then 
amid all the countless influences which agitated the people both North 
and South as disunion threatened, the voice of the public conscience, 
prompting to assumed duty, was triumphant in Congress, while it wa9 



6 

specially deep and earnest in the executive. No American can so real- 
ize this as did the two men called to meet frequently the two Christian 
statesmen, the Secretaiies of State and of the Navy, whose duty it wna 
to provide for the necessity laid upon Iho United States Government. It 
is enough t3 state the fact, that, under the two administrations respon- 
sible for the integrity of national policy from March 4th, 1853. to 
March 4th, 1SG1, the slave trade to all North American ports, the West 
India Islands included, was completely broken up and all the capiurcd 
people were colonized by Government appropriations in Liberia. 

Yet a new relation was assumed when the war for the union brought 
Bout hern blaves within the lines of the Union armies. The duty of 
providing for them was such, that, promptly on the appeal of President 
Lincoln, Congress made an appropriation lor the foreign colonization 
of the people desiring such provision. When the scheme of coloniza- 
tion first in Central America, then in the Danish "West Indies, had been 
frustrated, no one but those called to the interview, can ever appreciate 
the intense anxiety shown by President Lincoln; personally sending for, 
and conversing two hours with the sub committee of the Executive Com- 
mittee of this Society; sending at their suggestion an intelligent colored 
clergyman as their representative to visit Liberia and report to the clus- 
tering crowds of his people gathered at the national Capital. The rush 
of events during the delay, the decision of the War Department to em- 
ploy colored troops, and the idea that lands and other provisions at 
home would be granted to the emancipated people, arrested this stage 
of Government provision for colonists to the African Republic. 

Yet another new stage of Government duty had now arrived ; before 
entering upon whose consideration, since it is the present demand, this 
fact should be distinctly recalled. In every stage of the relations as- 
sumed between this country and its people, towards Africa and her 
people, the two elements above considered, that constitute civilization 
and that impose consequent national duty, have been found acting in 
co-operation; the material without question too often dominant; buttho 
moral silently but surely asserting ultimate supremacy over the Christ- 
ian people who settled the American continent, and over their descen- 
dants of each succeeding generation. Certainly no one will question the 
essential fact at issue, that since the origin of the United States Govern- 
ment, the moral has steadily gained sway over the material in the- 
motives controlling the policy of the United States people and its rep- 
resentatives in their relation to the colored people. This certainly was 
the case when by provision of the Constitution, for material consider- 
ations, the importation of slaves was permitted during twenty-one 
years; while in the same Constitution, the moral consideration was de- 
clared to be ruling after that period. This certainly was the case when, 
though at the planting of the first colony of Liberia material consider- 



aiiotis might have influenced some who desired the removal of frco 
colored people, the highest moral convictions ruled the statesmen and 
philanthropists who wished to provide a safe home for captured slaves, 
and a Christian Republic, on the dark continent. Surely, too, religious 
duty led to the supply of most of the colonists, when Christian owners 
Sacrificed thousands of dollars in giving, first freedom, and then ample 
provision in their freedom, to their most advanced and valuable serv- 
ants, who went joyfully to their new home. This, yet again, was tho 
case when the measures were inaugurated which broke up the slave 
trade, and threw on the hands of the United States Government hun- 
dreds of cipturcd slaves to be provided for in Africa; for, though ma- 
terial interests can, in almost any act of men and of nations, be sup. 
posed to enter into human counsels, such suggestions at this stage of 
African Colonization arc certait.ly overshadowed by a nobler impulse. 

Coming then to the last stage the study of human impulses should 
be impartially weighed, that decision may be just and duty clear. In 
his interview with the Committee of the American Colonization Socie- 
ty, asked by President Lincoln, he did drop expressions like this: "I 
must get rid somehow of this burden of care for the colored people; 
which may prove, among other weights, the last pound to break tho 
camel's back." Cut such utterances were momentary ebulitions. Tho 
deep, pervading, controlling utterances were like these; "I must do 
right by these people. I am not sure that I have authority to assume 
that they are free; and that I shall not be called to account for sending 
them out of the country. But, I must do the best for them under the 
ciicumstances; and I will run the risk of sending them to Africa if they 
care to go." 

As mentioned, however, the delay necessary to make the requisite 
arrangements, the sending of an agent to explore and bring back his re- 
port to the people, the rush of events, the need of immediate provision 
for the increasing crowds of refugees who had come within the lines, 
and the policy of the Secretary of War, as well as the hopes that the em- 
ploy of colored troops inspired ns to future Government provision, 
delayed African Colonization; until a new phase of assumed duty re- 
vived the demand. 

The impoverished condition of the border Slave States, the dc. 
Btruction and waste of farming implements during the years of war, yet 
more the exhausted soil, made the necessity of transferring colored labor- 
ers to the richer lands of the South, as well as of partial provision for 
them iu their field of labor; and this transfer and provision through tho 
Freed man's Bureau became a Government duty and charge. Accom- 
panying tins transfer, disappointment and dissatisfaction in the minds 
of some of the dependent people naturally arose; then came, afresh, 
thoughts of Africa as a home that had a future of promise; and this 



8 

lime for the first, it was the thought, tlic aspiration and the request of 
the colored people themselves. Just at this juncture, the experienced 
nnd honored Secretary. Ecv. E, R. Guiley. finished his course; and by 
the desire and direction of the Executive Committee, the single indi- 
vidual who for years had been Mr. Gut ley's associate 5u such calls was 
desired to sec the men most likely to take a just view of the demand. 
President Lincoln was no more; and two intimate personal friends were, 
therefore, sought; Maj. General Howard, at the head of the Frccd- 
men's Bureau, and Senator W. P.Fessenden, of Maine, "whose declin- 
ing health, had compelled him to resign the post of Secretary of tho 
Treasury, and who was then Chairman of the Finance Committee in tho 
Senate. Both urged that the presence of the colored people was needed 
as a material force in promoting the labor required in the South, and 
yet more as a moral element, aiding as voters to secure the protection 
of their associates in the Southern Stales and their advancement in 
social relations. The force and justice of these ends suggested, was 
allowed ; but the counter truth was urged that those who wished to go 
to Liberia were entitled to seek their individual interests as truly as 
white citizens, and that to deny this would be to perpetuate the sub- 
ordination of the interests of the colored people to the interests of tho 
while race. The justice of the plea was allowed. Through General 
Howard the cost of transport as far as Charleston or Norfolk to emi- 
grants for Africa was granted. Senator Fessenden promised to urge in 
the Finance Committee of the Senate that the same appropriation be 
made for freed people wishing to emigrate to Africa, which had in years 
past been made for slaves captured on the ocean. The untimely tleath 
of Senator Fessenden prevented the realization of his design. 

During the past year, in the mission of Commodore Shufehlt, tho 
United States Government has again recognized the debt of the Ameri- 
can people to the Liberian Republic. It is a debt, with its correspon- 
dent responsibilities, both to the American colored people and to tho 
land robbed, since their ancestors were brought hither, of its legiti- 
mate population; yet a debt, which, as Jefferson, Madison a:.d Clay all 
agreed in stating, can be amply repaid provided the people and Gov- 
ernment of the United States return to Africa, in place of uncultured 
and heathen barbarians, a cultivated and Christian people capable of 
maintaining an independent and growing civilization on i lie continent 
of Africa. Whether this can be realized, whether the facts of past 
history assure this realization, is the vital practical question, worthy our 
final consideration. For, if this cannot be realized, the duty of tho 
American people is doubtful; whereas, if it can be realized no shadow 
of a doubt can be allowed to excuse the neglect of paying our debt. 

Here it is of vital importance to notice that England and America, 
equally implicated in bringing the sons of Africa to our shores, and 



equally indebted to Africa, have from the first been true represent- 
atives of two lines of policy pursued towards the African people in all 
past ages, and now legitimate in these two distinct nations. England, 
whose increasing and ever advancing people, pent up in a little island, 
must seek foreign territory in fulfilling the double dnty of self-devel- 
opement and of extending civilization, has in both Asia and Africa, 
since the loss of her chief American colonics, been steadily seeking 
territorial occupation; and of course in establishing imperial rule, in 
both Asia and Africa. The history of her occupation of African terri- 
tory began, -when during the war of American Independence, slaves 
came within the lines of her armies just as they came within the lines 
of the Union army during our late war, Asa necessity imposed upon 
them the British Government provided the colored refugees, first, a tem- 
porary home in Canada; and then, afterwards, at great cost, — an ex- 
pense perpetuated to this day, — they were furnished a permanent homo 
at Sierra Leone; a projecting Western Cape of Africa, which became a 
depot in the line of England's then increasing India trade. Since that 
day, points of permanent territorial occupation have been sought; first 
at the Southern Cape of Africa; then at Natal on its eastern coast; then 
at Lagos commanding the mouth of the Niger, South of the Great West- 
ern desert; to which have succeeded a temporary military expedition 
into Christian Abyssinia, and permanent commercial establishments in 
the heathen and Mohammedan sections of the Continent. No impartial 
observer, however, — no honest critic, even, can fail to sec and to say that 
in this occupation, British Christian blessings to the African people 
have gone hand in hand with British monopoly of African commerce. 
For exploration she has both wisely and humanely employed such men 
as Livingstone, the Christian missionary; whose mantle fell even upon 
the young American Stanley with such grace that the Christian con- 
version of the African Emperor Mtcsa became as truly a part of his mis- 
sion as the opeuing of a new field for British trade. 

This is England's chosen aud legitimate policy of promoting civili- 
zation in Africa. But, America has another mission; approved alike by 
the reasoning of her men of science and by the deductions from history 
which will mlc American statesmen. In the winter of 1SG0 '01, Guyot 
the Christian scientist, the peer of Agassizin comprehensive observation 
and careful analysis, in a course of Lectures at the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, brought out the fact that in the Divine design, the three fam- 
ilies arc three types of human development of mankind, whose history 
has been alike traced by Moses, Herodotus, Diodorus and Buusen. 
These three families are permanent types of bouyant aud sinccro 
childhood, of the imaginative aud self-sufficient spirit of youth, aud 
of the advanced and advancing thirst for scicucc and philosophy pe- 
culiar to mature age. The first family is the Ilauiitic of Africa; cheerful, 



10 

<3ocile, fond of physiool employ, simple in its unelaborated language, 
and isolated except when forced from their home. The second is the 
Semitic or Asiatic; imaginative, poetic and sclf-satisfieJ ; with language 
half-elaborated; arbitrary in rule over inferior tribes, yet overshadow- 
ing only those simpler people naturally brought under its shade by its 
own branching, which extends its spread. The third is the Japhetic; or 
European; never satisfied with the highest attainments in individual 
progress; and ever aspiring for more extended rule over less devel- 
oped tribes. 

Iu Africa, the home of the first race, the modern British policy was 
witnessed from lime immemorial in Egypt and Carthage on the North; 
a precedent too often quoted as if it were the only guide in African de- 
velopment. In Egypt foreign kings, as Herodotus records, ruled from 
the days of Menes, two centuries before Abraham's day; it was into this 
family Joseph married, and it was under their tuition that Moses be- 
came learned in all the wisdom of Egypt. At Carthage, Phcnician 
science and letters were ruling before Eneas, the fugitive Trojan, visi- 
ted its shore; while Greek colonies ruled in Cyrene before Homer wrote. 
At the same time, however, iu Central Africa, in ancient Ethiopia, now 
modern Abyssinia, a pure type of the darkest colored African race 
threatened Egypt in Moses' day; Moses, as Josephus records, led an 
Egyptian army thither, justifying Luke's record that he was "mighty 
in deeds " as well as "in words;" and in Ins exile the Hebrew law -giver 
married an Ethiopian wife, to whom he proved faithful in his exalta- 
tion, though opposed by family pride. As permanent witness to the 
association of Moses in On with both these superior and inferior races 
is the fact, that one-tenth of the words of Moses' records arc Sanscrit 
and one-fifteenth arc Ethiopic. Shortly after the Hebrews left Egypt 
under Moses, as Bun sen has shown, Ethiopian kings invaded, and for 
centuries held, upper Egypt, with its grandest city Thebes. In the cul- 
minating spread of the Hebrew power under David, the royal poet and 
prophet wrote: "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." 
That promise of early conversion to the faith of the Old Testament was 
in the reign of Solomon, and through his commerce, realized ; illustrating 
the fact recorded by Luke the historian of Christ and His apostles, that 
the treasurer of the Queen of Ethiopia was reading the prophet Isaiah, 
while making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as a proselyte to the Jewish 
faith. Returning home as a Christian convert, as Bishop Gobai has 
shown, an independent African power has maintained an independent 
( and high character to this day, resisting the assaults of all foreign pow- 
ers, and holding fast the Christian faith amid heathenism, untempted 
by the professedly new supplements to Christianity claimed to have been 
made by Mohammed. Even when England, in 13G8, invaded this African 
nation, the proud monarcb, boasting his descent from the Queen of Sheba, 



11 

whose realm was separated from Ethiopia by only the narrow strait of 
Bab-el-mandeb, claiming also descent from Solomon through this Queen 
as one among his thousand wives — this proud and consciously superior 
African prince proposed an alliance with England by offering to tako 
its widowed sovereign as one of his wives. 

With this perpcluated example of the true African's capacity for in- 
dependent government before them, it was not surprising that at a very 
early day in the history of the colony at Liberia, the nation, whose an- 
cestors for a century and a half had been ruled by their mother country 
as dependent colonists, should have entrusted the colored people them- 
selves with the management of their own executive, legislative and ju- 
dicial affairs. It is confirmatory of this wisdom in the past, that for 
half a century the U. S. Government hasinteipcsed in the affairs of the- 
Liberian Republic, only when, as during the last year, their good offi- 
ces in aiding the settlement of a territorial question as to boundary, 
was invited; a question to whose settlement our people are committed 
because theirs was the original purchase. When now that Republic is 
asking for emigrants from our shores to increase their population, and 
when, too, the Colonization Society is specially careful to select the men 
and the families best fitted in every respect to become useful citizens 
of the Republic of Liberia, no wonder that the intelligent men, who 
must act in meeting our national responsibility, declare with assurance 
that the future stability and success of the Colony is assured. One lact 
especially, no lover of his country north or south can forget, as a testi- 
mony to the moral control exhibited by the colored people of the South 
at home; which cannot prove deceptive as to their future in Africa. 
When in the progress of the late war for the Union, four millions of peo- 
ple were assured that emancipation would be their boon if the war final- 
ly turned against their masters, not a single instance of insurrection 
during the four long years of conflict occurred. Without any question 
it was an all-controlling religious sentiment that lay at the foundation 
of this anomaly in history. When the remarkable fact is taken into ac- 
count that 450,000, or about one-eighth of the 4,000,000 of colored peo- 
ple in our Southern States, arc communicants in the Christian Churches 
of a single denomination, that about 220,000, or an added half-eighth aro 
united to a single other denomination — so that without doubt nearly ono 
half of the entire adult population are followers of the Prince of Peace — 
not only docs this fact explain the past as to the order and stability of 
the Liberian Republic and as *.o their years of faithful, loyal service in 
our States, but it is a prophetic voice giving assurance that, through 
them as colonists, all Africa will become civilized and Christianized. 

. In a brief but suggestive address following a lecture on the Irish 
and their promise, by Rev. G. W. Ilcpworlh, delivered a few evenings 
since, in New York, ex-Governor Hoffman, whose political course is 



12 

known, uttered words to this cflcct: that " God had disappointed the 
politicians of all schools in our country; and the same might prove tiue- 
in Great Britain." That was a pregnant tiuth. The Irish people nev- 
er can be independent of their union to Great Britain; they may never- 
theless, yet be reconciled to that union ; but in the future, as in the past, 
without question, the laboring people who aspire to a future of premise 
for themselves and their children, will seek it by emigration. So in 
our Union, no state or section will ever be independent of their sister 
states; that Union both for white and colored citizens, may and will 
become more universally satisfactory; but the colored people in our 
country will always be dependent on superior capital and culture, and 
the more intelligent and aspiriDg will seek a home where competition 
will not always keep them behind in the individual struggle for social 
preferment. 

We end, therefore, as we began. Men of business and nations will 
Lave their plans for Africa and its people. But the Lord of all mankind, 
the God of nations, has also Jlis plans ; and those plans will prevail. 



Ci 



im lymm jm 



99 



JLIsT .AJDZDIREISS 



DELIVERED BEFORE TUB 



1 m^wan miaiunihn &ttiit& 



JANUARY 18, 1881, 



BY 



JOHN L WITHROW, D. D., 



Park Street CnuRcn, Boston. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



WASHINGTON CITY; 

POLONIZATION J3UTL.DING, 45O PENNSYLVANIA ^TENUI 

l88t, 






>~~ Nokmal Schuol Steam Press 
Hampton. Va. 



r BESS, AU- 

- — 4=F 



ADDRESS. 



Things sound as if the morning hour for Africa must have struck. 
The last of the six continents to claim the attention of the world, who 
can be sure she may not yet, as the last child of Jesse, be appointed by 
Providence to a place of principal eminence? Her calling is at a pro- 
pitious period of human history. Though denominated the dark conti- 
nent, her set time strikes in the high day of universal light, when t he 
prophecy is being fulfilled : "the darkness shall tlee away." Other con- 
tinents have been carved and shaped into the similitudes of palaces for 
the people with clumsy and cruel weapons of civilization: with dull 
and inadequate agencies for education and under bigoted and blunder- 
ing leadership in religion. 

Would the governments of Darius and Alexander have perished if 
knowledge had been diffused so that politics had been understood by 
the people as well as by the archou ; and religion by the worshipper 
as well as by the priest? 

Might not Rome have still been stable on her seven hills of Empire, 
had she but felt the thrill of disenthralling individualism, which came 
forth in convulsions at the close of the eighteenth century, but is the 
normal life of the nineteenth? 

Do the agonizing nations of Northern Europe now indicate anything 
more clearly than this, that our era means to end its work by cutting the 
clinch from the fetter, and flinging into the black abyss of the 
forever the last shackle of human bondage? Because the world moves, 
mankind has come much nearer than ever to know how deep were the 
words of the Lord: "The son of man came to seek and save that which 
was lost." Naturalism provides a physician for the whole; Biblical 
civilization, for them that are sick. 

Old times and nations slid not imitate your parental care and provide 
first for the impotent, ignorant and poor. They debated and declared 
the divine right of Kings; the lofty claims of feudal lords; and the in- 
herent eminence assured by color of blood, independent of character. 
Ancestral times were reluctant to learn that a State cannot imitate an 
acrobat and stand upon its head. Later times have learned it. And 
now, whither have the absolute monarchies of earth departed? How 
limited are the limits of momarchies that yet remain? And how their 
constantly shrinking prerogatives remind us of the cage of story. 
Built so that the turn of crank each morning made its sides close 
and shutout ray after ray of day, until at last the inmate, was chrushed 
by its iron embrace. And he who designed and built it suffered death 
by it. So those old Constitutions and States, which potentates composed 



to press the life out of the common people, for the pleasure and profit 
of fortune's favorites, arc closing on their builders, as the shrinking cage; 
until there is hardly a royal house that does not suffer a continual ache 
of apprehension for the future of crowned heads. Up to this pro- 
pitious present where will'we find a continent or country whose begin- 
nings of civilization were not hampered by the restrictions of popular 
rights? This accounts for empires perishing, and for the slow pro- 
gress made by such as survive. 

Consider the condition of England at the hour of the Norman con- 
quest, and compare her with Great Britain now ; and how very slowly she 
has moved during those eight centuries! England would not have been 
so long in rising from the bogs and barbarism of her beginning to be- 
come, as she is, the first of Christian Kingdoms, if Alfred the Great had 
begun his work at the same time that you planted a Colony on the shores 
of Africa! 

But three and three quarter centuries have a little more than elapsed 
since white men commenced to fashion our national fabric from the 
American forests. Only two hundred and sixty Decembers have sheet- 
ed Plymouth Rock with ice since the pious and intrepid Puritans sowed 
the seeds of republican liberty along the New Eugland coast. But a 
hundred and four times, the fourth of Julv's rejoicings have reverberated 
over our heads as an independent people. For ninety and two years 
only wc have slept under the canopy of a national Constitution. And 
behold how much further we have advanced in less than four centuries, 
than England did in six. 

And yet our beginnings were under heavy disabilities. What slug- 
gish shipss ailed the seas? What tardy communications circulated ideas? 
What loitering messengers imparted intelligence? How narrow were 
the notions of natural laws! How dull was the appetite for progress in 
art! Science was an embryo. Religion largely a superstition. Com- 
merce a name. Civilization rude. Culture crude. International comi- 
ty unknown. China was a sealed munition ; Japan a myth ; Eugland an 
enemy and all Europe a fiercely contested battlefield. Therefore, there 
is no other ground of national boasting so broad and safe as this; that 
we have done as well a9 we have, considering the hindrances at the outset. 

During these dolorous ages Africa, as a diamond in the mine, has 
been hid in the dark waiting for the digger, the lapidary and the day 
when she may dazzle and decorate the world. Her time arrives when the 
noise of war is scarcely heard under the sun; when Kings and Captains 
have loosed their clutch of spears and swords to take up plows and pens; 
when for Councils of War wc select Commissions of arbitration ; when 
the haughtiest power cannot abuse its subjects, any more than a heart- 
less driver can the dumb brute, without having such protests and penal- 
ties imposed as Austria and Turkey have recently heard and heeded. 
The hour for Africa is when nations are not clamorous for territorial 



conquest, but rich enough to offer unlimited wealth for investment and 
for her development: and religious enough to give aid to those who will 
carry her the best schools and the most Bibles; build the fewest confes- 
sionals; bind her conscience the least and exalt her social life the most. 

When the plans and impulses of Providence prompted the opening of 
North America — except a few scattered fishermen who came down from 
the north not to stay — there were but two great nations that could 
take time from war at home to man expeditions and plant colonies in 
this new country. To day the entire world nearly looks through the 
open gates of Janus in the only one direction that remains to invite the 
explorer; and is eager to follow him. Ships have been stripped of lazy 
sail and filled with impatient steam. Monrovia is nearer New York than 
Pittsburg was when your Society elected its first President. At thirty 
or forty different points ambitious parties are seeking entrance to the 
unknown secrets of Africa; and may be we will hold our breath when 
they bring back full reports, by and by. They are clothed with peace; 
weaponed with implements of the best civilization ; aflame with the 
loftiest aspiration and devoted to the extension of that religion which, 
alone has a heaven-born right to reign. Theodolites and spades are 
ready to alter footpaths into railroads, on which engines will ultimate- 
ly each drag hundreds of tons where but a few stone- weight have been 
loaded on brutes and slaves' backs from the beginning. The desert of 
Sahara, from side to side, is soon to be seeded with the roses of industry 
which railroads are sure to sow. And the Niger is to cradle keels that 
will carry some such promise and potency for the Western side of the 
Continent, as the Nile did for the little nook of Egypt when it bore 
Moses in the basket of bulrushes. 

For this, prosperous France appropriates this year six millions of 
francs. Germany unites the purse of her Parliament with the resources 
of her geographical societies, and commissions six expeditions to go and 
see this thing which has come to pass, and bring her word again. 
Though trembling under the burdens of taxation and weary with schem- 
ing, to sustain her standing as a solvent nation, Italy is unable to hold 
off her hands from knocking for admission to Africa. Spain, never in- 
different to her neighbor beyond the narrows of Gibraltar, now wakes 
to unwonted energy ; and enters eagerly into the competition with others, 
if haply she may on the eastern side sieze the pearl of great price. Of 
all names that are taken up tenderly in our times none receives more rev- 
erent regard than that of David Livingstone ; the factory boy of Blantyre, 
who became for ever illustrious by hiding himself in the bosom of the 
dark continent — as a lamp in a lantern — thereby becoming its light, 
and as well making it luminous to all who look at it. 

The intrepid Stanley is as renowned as was a great warrior of old ; simp- 
ly because he has carried the torch of a Christian civilization, and the let- 
ters which spell liberty further than any white man into the interior and 
up to Mtesa's Court ! Surely things sound as if the morning hour for 



Africa has struck. 

In this consort of nations, closing round her coasts, — their minds on 
her mines of precious ores; eyes on her elephants and ivory; snuffing 
her spice groves and peering into the mouths of her waters to see where 
her rivers of palm oil rise, what attitude and anxiety best becomes us 
as a nation? Not the same as is seemly for others. No other nation 
has, as we have, crushed and milled her sons into riches, as the caues of 
the sugar fields are worked. No other nation has been so ignorant and 
rapacious as ours in robbing this subject race of its blood, and rolling it 
up as the make weight of cotton bales, and chiefest wealth and sign of 
boasted social supremacy of the proudest section of the body politic. 
Therefore, by no rule of righteousness can we seek first the prizes of 
commerce which rightfully allure other lands. Or if we do, and do ob- 
tain them, I fear the curse of ill-gotten pain will accumulate as between 
us and these our ebony brothers of one blood. 

It is time for us to begin to serve Africa; to redress unutterable 
wrongs by " works meet for repentance." The eternal throne of justice 
may express its full satisfaction with African slave-holding America 
when we do more than God's compulsory Providence in war compelled 
us to do — cut the shackle and set the black man free. When we do 
more than put into the hands of benighted ignorance a ballot, to make 
the black man a voter in form, but a victim of all political villainy in 
fact. When we do even more than open public schools and university 
courses for his education. 

Story books, that we read in boyhood, had thrilling tales of Indians 
stealing children from families of white people on the frontier. The 
agonies of parental sufferings! how vividly they are painted! The pe- 
rils of the pure maiden as a prisoner in the wigwam of wicked men ; and 
the months and years of anguish that intervene before word is brought 
home how the lost child is, we can easily recall! Suppose it were our 
child, and all we heard was that her captors had cut the cords from her 
wrists; had agreed not to degrade her character any deeper by unspeak- 
able lawlessness; and had opened a school in which her offspring of 
shame might see what they could do to recover themselves. 

Could our indignation acquit even an aboriginee who would con- 
sider this a decent travesty of justice! Give me back my child, is the 
choking cry of abused parental love. 

And if Africa is too far off for our ears to catch her cry: or if ignor- 
ance and oppression have so deadened her best sensibility that she has 
ceased to know how shamefully she has suffered in the robbery and 
commerce of her children, Ave believe heaven hears for her, and holds the 
book of account. 

And if so, our bounden duty is to undertake, more errnestly than 
ever for Africa both here and abroad, all enterprises that promise to re- 
dress her wrongs and to return her offspring, who may have a hunger 
for home, to the land of their fathers. Therefore it goes withont say- 



ing, that those imposing plans of the American Board to plant the agen 
cies and emblems of salvation at Bihe deserve the sympathy and suppli- 
cation of every American citizen. They go not for gain, but the good 
of souls, the glory of God and the illumination of the dark land. So 
does the Mendi Mission, which now, under our American Missionary 
Association, after thirty years of feeble success and fearful sacrifice of 
white missionaries, is setting out to bring salvation to that part 
of Africa through the service of her own sons. 

But passing these and other agencies with only a word of benediction, 
we are now to consider, whether this African Colonization Society ought 
not still to have a share of sympathy and a swelling measure of substan- 
tial support in doing a part of tins work. 

It ought; consideiing its patient continuance in well doing up to 
this present. At a meeting held in Park St. church, Boston, about a 
year ago, in the interests of your Society, Rev. Joseph Cook shocked the 
audience into intense attention by this opening sentence: "Liberia is 
bankrupt!" lie instantly relieved our solicitude by saying; "These 
were the words of an opponent of African Colonization which I heard 
while coming down to the church." 

It was not our Boston orator who declared " Liberia is bankrupt." 
And it may not have been the best informed from whom he took his ora- 
torical fire-cracker. 

The outs, if they are of a critical mind, have every advmtage over the 
ins that endeavor to promote an enterprise. Because it is so much eas- 
ier to criticise than to construct ; easier to give reasons for refusing fav- 
or than to establish truth by argument and effort. 

Of those who have least faith in African Colonization and least fervor 
in forwarding your endeavors, it may not be uncharitable to guess, the 
lack is due largely to the same cause which, we read, gave God such 
grief in the days of the prophets; " Israel doth not know; my people do 
not consider." But, remembering how much there is to know and do in 
our day, we need not feel aggrieved if all good men are not enlisted in 
every excellent movement. 

It does not disturb the faith we have in the temperance reform that 
some really pious people are imprudent enough to tipple. Nor ought 
it to influence any friend of African Colonization unfavorably to hear of 
ardent philanthropists who prefer another way of paying our debts. It 
weighs nothing against this Society's work, that we know, if even the de- 
based race, for whose welfare it has so patiently worked, are not entire- 
ly enthusiastic in their praise of it. That signifies nothing; because their 
intelligence is not yet so broad and clear but that they are in dread of 
the very uncertain white man who from the time lie first stole their fore- 
fathers and enslaved them has shown an ingenuity in mistreating men 
of their color. Neither do any short comings of complete success in 
the free colony and Republic of Liberia settle the question against your 
eloquent appeal for enlarged support. Nations do not grow as Jonah's 



gourd — unless to wither as quick. It was 1821 before a permanent be- 
ginning of the Republic of Liberia was recorded. Since then only sixty 
years hare passed. Sixty years with sixty wings on every minute of the 
time, and how swiftly the years do fly. 

Take account of any other nation that started on so desolate a site, 
on such stinted supplies, in the teeth of such hostilities, and see how 
much more any one of them achieved in their first sixty years. What 
was there to show on these shores within sixty years from the coming 
of Columbus? Or wait six years after the Spanish keel had cut a track 
across the sea, when the first English colony of 300, under Sabastian 
Cabot, arrived, aud then count forward sixty years, and compare the re- 
sults with those of Liberia. Quite seventy years elapsed before there 
was so much as a permanent colony planted north of the gulf of Mexi- 
co. True the world wns younger then than now, and equal progress 
could not be expected. But we may be more generous, and not 
begin to inquire of the American colonies for a full century after Cabot's 
company came. And yet starting thus, in 1598, we shall need to wait 
two weary centuries more before those colonies are seamed and cement- 
ed under a Constitution of States. 

So that if the short-comings of African Colonization were even more 
real than they are now imaginary, the propriety of supporting it does 
not deserve a snap judgment against it. 

When reading recently more carefully than before the significant 
facts of the Society's history, I paused at this; it was in the ship 
"Elizabeth " your first eighty immigrants were carried to Africa. We re- 
cal another Elizabeth who bore a forerunner of her race and the pioneer 
of a holy dispensation. Her child endured many a year of ascetic sac- 
rifice and severe labors in the wilderness of Judea merely to "prepare 
the way of the Lord ." He organized nothing. He established nothing. 
This son of the New Testament Elizabeth wa9 satisfied if he might be 
but " the voice " of the better things to come. And if the results of 
the voyage of that Eliizabeth of yours, in all the years since she touched 
at Sherbro Island had been but to prepare the way of the people who 
are yet to follow, and to secure the blessings that Liberia may yet be- 
stow on Africa, we ought to say of the Society; "Well done good and 
faithful servant! " 

A second reason why the African Colonization Society onght to survive 
and be strengthened is, that better than any other it is now equipped 
to aid these restless sons of Africa to return home. 

With some it is a first question whether they are restless, and do ask 
to r turn, The street says, no. Statistics say, yes? And of the two, 
statistics may be taken as the m >re sober and reliable witness. But I 
have not met a more adverse view of this work than comes from thost 
who quote the street. They think the fundamental idea of the Society 
is fallacious: because the colored people do not desire aid to return and 
it is at variance with the truth to say they do! May I not safely make 



this answer on your bob ilfl If they do not, then they need not. 

They are not to be coerced nor cheated into changing countries. 
This Society has no kidnappers roaming the South. No cunning repre- 
sentations of yours are deceiving the colored population of the Carol inas. 
No oily-lipped agent in Florida or Louisiana, similar to those who serve 
the Chinese companies of California in Asia, or the Mormon monstrosity 
in Northern Europe are securing you emigrants. You do not flash the 
south with posters promising these poor people they will find Liberia the 
Eldorado where they can pick up riches ao stones in the street. That is 
the way they used to draw emigrants from Ireland, — morc's the pity. But 
as far as the east is from the west is any measure of yours from that hold 
operating of modern mining companies, which capitalizes a shadow at 
millions, on paper, and puts the shares on the market at a sixpence. 
And so, it has but little appearance of undue influence, where I read in 
"Information about going to Liberia that each emigrant on his arrival is 
given only a town lot, or ten acres of land." For if he remains in Amer- 
ica there are one hundred and sixty acres open to his occupancy. When 
it is asked: "How can I make a living in Africa;" the answer, as 
printed, is not particularly enticing to a people who are naturally tired. 
It says : "In the same way that you would make one anywhere else ; that 
is by industry and economy." 

This is not even so inviting as the inducement which an Irish labor- 
er, lately lauded in America, olTcred to friends iu the old country to fol- 
low him here. I have nothing to do, wrote he, but lug loads of brick to 
the top of the building, and another man does all the work. Emigrants 
to Liberia learn before leaving home that the sentence of Heaven stands 
in Africa as here: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou cat 
bread." But notwithstanding the ignorance there is among the colored 
people of the opportunity presented to them to obtain an independence, 
a self-control, a social respect, and political influence, which for gener- 
ations to come but few of their race can reach by remaining in America; 
and notwithstanding the slight inducements that are offered them in 
passage and in property, this conservative Society asserts, that of its 
knowledge there arc half a million of the people of color who are agi- 
tating the question of emigration to Liberia. If so it would seem befit- 
ting that this firs: friend of Western Africa's civilization should be en- 
abled to aid this restless offspring of the early slaves. Except the Afri- 
can, there is no race represented in our heterogeneous population whose 
offspring might not be able without any outside aid to emigrate wherc- 
cver they would — over all the earth, provided their fathers had used their 
opportunities and economized their profits. But it has been otherwise 
with the African race. Of the millions of them who were slaves, not 
one has a son over eighteen years of age who was not born with the 
brand of bondage on his brow and a fetter on his foot, unfitting him to 
easily find his way beyond the base estate in which his ancestors have 
Buffered for centuries. And it agrees with the best impulses and deep- 



10 

est principles of justice that we owe it to every son of those sires who 
lived and died in servitude, to put it within their power to go and 
take up a residence wherever they desire. 

Do some of them yearn for that, to them, most of all sacred state, the 
fat lauds of Kansas? Then we would throw open every door, despite 
auy specious argument which former owners urge against losing 
them from the cotton fields. And more, as Joseph put money 
into the bag of his brethren it would be but scant charity if ev- 
ery cmigraut to that laud should have given him as good a send off as 
you promise to those who start for Liberia. So, too our God speed 
would go with all wlio ask the way to South Africa, or to the risiug-suu- 
side of their fatherland, '"with their faces thitherward." But multi- 
tudes arc looking to Western Africa: and when it is inquired who is in a 
position to best promote their going there docs not appear any ground to 
debate that you are. Whether thinking of t lie wisdom of the illustrious 
men who have managed this Society — and before the array of their 
names the spirit of reverence spontaneously bows. — or whether we reck- 
on the superior advantages of climate and geography of your young Re- 
public or if wc note the numerous pointings of Divine Providence 
which prophecy a brilliant future for Liberia, it does look unreasonable 
and is due to some ignorance tbat all well Wishers of colored people are 
not friends of African Colonization. 

And this leads me to the next reason why the Society ought to succeed. 
Third ; The American Republic owes it to her only child, the Republic in 
Africa, that she shall receive such supplies as will insure her stability 
and preserve her purity. 

Wc say things sound as if the morning hour for Africa has struck. 
But there are hours before the third. We do not forget that for a hun- 
dred and fifty years fearless and faithful followers of Christ, have been 
laboring to lift South Africa into the light of Christian civilization, lie 
reads little of the world's heroes who knows not George Schmidt, the 
pioneer of African missions; nor of that illustrious scholar, soldier and 
saint, Vandcrkemp, who gave his great heart and life for Kaffirs and 
Hottentots, nor yet of Robert Mofl'at, whose glory-crowned grey-bead 
was cynosure at the Mildmay Missionary Conference in 1879. ; and who 
owed the honors he received, and is to receive unto and after death to 
the unmatched services and sacrifices he has given to missions in South 
Africa. It is not forgotten that Cape Colony gives a brighter view of 
the continent than Victoria Nyanz i, Bornu, or the upper Niger. That 
wdierc George Schmidt planted his "handful of corn" mission near- 
ly two hundred thousand Christians' have come to the Cross, and es- 
tablished the faith in South Africa. 

But none of the beginnings in that region belong to us. To Great 
Britain and the Dutch BoeiB belong the Cape, the Orange River Free 
State: and the Transvaal Republic. And as posterity will hold them 
responsible for their good or evil influence over the poor natives, so it 



11 

must be with us up the coast, where we are trying the experiment of a 
Republic, built on a pattern received by us in the holy Mount Calvary. 
Liberia is far from home, and hard pressed by heathen populations that 
would enthral her liberty by exhibiting to her ruling spirits the advantages 
of oppression. The child is separated by wide seas from this parental at- 
mosphere that has, as its vital element of intelligent enterprise and inde- 
pendence, the prayers t.nd piety, traditions and tendencies which arise 
as a fountain under the Christian Church and circulate through all the 
channels of social, commercial, literary and political life. 

Remembering Liberia's proximity to populous and profoundly de- 
based neighborhoods, it is worthy of our wonder that her skirts haven ot 
been already bemired and her spirit bewitched — as Israel of old was 
wont to be by the encroaching heathen. 

To surely prevent this, under that propitious Providence which has 
watched all your ships sail safe from shore to shore, let picked emigrants 
from our schools and Universities, and the better classes of colored citizens 
go out; in numbers corresponding at least with that constant inflow of 
country life which keeps our own cities supplied with their reviving ele- 
ment, and the young Republic will swell but never stagnate, and will 
age but not lose its youth. 

Its present population of three quarters of a million is not sufficentto 
pierce the masses of moral corruption without becoming contaminated 
itself. And the best addition will be well bred brothers of their own bloo,] 
who carry from home our highest and holiest ideas of education and re- 
ligion to repeatedly refresh their aspirations and piety. 

And as it is your aim to accomplish just this, I think the effort ought 
to succeed: and for a final fourth reason. 

To afford a reasonable argument why other attempts to save Af- 
rica ought to be aided. At the outset of this enterprise the end in view 
stopped with your good will to free people of color in this country. Now 
all are politically free: and the emphasis of your endeavor rests not on 
narrowerbut on broader grounds. Then it was for the benefit of some 
Africans. Now it is for all Africans and all Africa. But if Liberia is not 
made a success after what has been given to it of the head and heart of 
many of the purest philanthropists which this century has produced, what 
can be hoped for on the more hostile Eastern Coast, or at Mtcsa's court? 
Neither the East nor the interior offer greater facilities of approach ; nor 
a kindlier reception to the new coiner. Their airs are not so salubrious, 
nor soil more prolific, nor population more promising subjects of Chris- 
tian civilizations. 

So that when Liberia shall come to disappoint the expectations of its 
founders and friends, the wisdom of expending life and treasure on any 
further attempt to dissipate the darkness from the Transvaal to the Al- 
bert Nyanza will be pointedly questioned by practical men. 

It is not because I have consented to say something on this occasion, 
that the claims of this work draw my warmest words of approval. I am 



12 

not subsidized to utter an endorsement, by a desire to receive your ap- 
proval, who have placed roe here. Any want of interest in me during 
the past has been due to ignorance and misapprehension ; and to the fact, 
that only in the last few years have the claims of the dark continent aud 
of the colored people pressed to the front of philanthropic questions. 

Even now no violent rapture sweeps me from the place of reason. 
No Utopian dream of drawing everybody into admiration of African 
Colonization fill my mind. But by as much as I gather together the 
facts of history, motives of action, and achievements of good which are 
already recorded of your attempt to plant a land of the free and a home 
for the black in Liberia, by so much does it appear impossible that 
divine Providence will allow you to want any good thing. 

Around the entire rim of that great continent beacons have been 
lighted and beginnings made. But no where is the light so prismatical- 
ly pure, containing so many of the colors that blend to make the white 
beam, as that which shines off the shores of Liberia. I would it were 
only by a flight of fancy, that I see there the one strong-hold of our ho- 
ly religion ; and the one place where the son of man when He cometh 
will find faith on the earth. Naturally a more religious race 'than any; 
and so easily captivated by the name of Christ that colored people nev- 
er yield to anything so cordially as to the most Biblical religion, it may 
be that they in their own saved conntry may yet become the chiefest 
custodians of its sacraments, services and traditions. That if philosophi- 
ziug Europe, and fashionable America, and idolatrous Asia shall ever 
have lost themselves in a turmoil of debate, in a whirl of imitations, or 
laid down in a lethargy of indifference — as Asia is fast doing, Africa 
may be holding fast the faith once delivered to the saints. 

A distinguished and venerable bishop of the A. M. E. Church was 
preaching in my hearing at Saratoga. His topic was; the trials and 
triumphs of Christianity. Selecting many striking examples in old 
Testament times where the powers of evil tried but failed to destroy the 
Church of God, lie came to the advent of Christ. Now, said the preach- 
er, Satan and his forces were fired with a fierce purpose; they would 
not be foiled in this attempt. This is the son, they said ; come let us 
kill him that the inheritance may be ours. 

And so all the aids of the adversary combined and engaged Herod 
to kill the child Jesus. But when the Lord saw how strong they were, 
and He had no place of safety for his son outside of Egypt; lie just 
ordered Joseph to take the young child and its mother atfd go down 
among the colored people: and stay until He brought him word again. 
"As it is written out of Egypt have I called my son." It had been known 
and written by inspiration long before it happened that there would 
romc a time when the only safe place for the infant Christ would be 
down among the colored people. Is there any other Scripture in His 
mind, that reads; the time will come when the cause of Chirst will 
have no place of perfect acceptance and safety except in Africa, among 
the colored people? 



The Present Success of Liberia ; 



Its Extent and Meaning 

o 



AN ADDRESS 



BY 



WM. RANKIN DURYEE, D. D., 

PELIVERED IN ^WASHINGTON, p. p., 
AT THI 

SIXTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING 

OF THE 

J'&ja.-tajs^ry 17"tis.» 1662. 



PUBMSHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIBTT- 



WASHINGTON CITY : 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenuk 

j§8*. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Members of the American Colonization Society: 
It is with feelings of sincerest pleasure that I come before you to- 
night to congratulate you on the completion of another year of labor 
for the noble cause in which you are engaged. This Society is gain- 
ing what we in America may call a venerable age. Yet we must re- 
member that the trees which stand the longest and wave the strong- 
est branches in our forests are not those which spring up to their full- 
ness of height in a short period. Through a stretch of years, longer 
often than the ordinary life of man, they grow slowly but surely, send- 
ing out their hidden roots painfully and laboriously through the earth 
or the rocky fissure, till the springs are reached which summer never 
dries and frost never congeals. Their saplings at first grow rather in 
girth than in height, pushing out branches firmly set on the parent 
stem and able to resist the storm. Those who tread the woodland 
path may not at once note the growth ; those who live by the forest side 
may scarcely be attracted ; but at last, when the winds of a score of 
years have wrought their will, the massive tree which seems sudden- 
ly to emerge from among its companions, becomes the pride of the 
community, as it is seen rooted, erect, and advancing where others 
have decayed and fallen. Such, it seems to me, has been the course 
of the Society represented here to-night. Two generations have gone 
by since its seeds were planted by the hands of prayerful and loving 
men. Its advance has been through bitter storms assailing it on every 
side. From the very nature of its life it awoke special opposition, 
and if cursing and contempt, if partisan dislike at home or foreign 
hatred could have rooted it up, long ago this organization would 
have ceased to be. But it is not destroyed, thank God, but holds on 
; with a prosperity around and beyond it, which defies the will of 
enemies. Like some graceful palm it uplifts its fruitage now where eve- 
ry eye can mark it ; a fruitage as beautiful and beneficial as any merely 
human organization has ever gained. It presents Liberia, the one 
Negro Republic which Africa or the world knows, as the direct re- 
sult of its prayers, its wisdom, and its sacrificing labor. It claims 
what no other organization for the benefit of the black man can claim, 
that the present condition of Liberia proves that the conceptions of 



the founders of this Society were as grand and as permanent for good 
as those which have long been the pride of history. It has done 
more than bestow a civil freedom, it has done more than lift the in- 
tellect of the Negro, it has done more than merely colonize. // has 
already, I profoundly believe, laid the corner-stone of a nation. It has 
created an earthly home where the Negro finds himself without a so- 
cial obstacle before him, and with every advantage which his fellow 
men enjoy, able to develop every God-given power and to upbuild the 
highest manhood as citizen and as individual. A Society that planned 
such a work as this' might have seemed, sixty years ago, but a com- 
pany of enthusiasts. To-day the result declares that its members have 
been workers together with God. They were in the line of righteous- 
ness and wisdom when they began, their present successors are in the 
line of righteousness and wisdom still. The old battle cry of the Cru- 
saders, " Vitlt Deus, Vult Dens," "God wills it," may be written over 
your doors, for facts accomplished show the will of God in the past, 
and become, in a high degree, the foreshadowing of that will in the 
future. 

Liberia, we believe, is no longer an experiment, but a success. Look 
at it! It holds within its borders 15,000 of the very best Negroes 
which this world contains, men and women trained to support them- 
selves by honest labor in this life, and led by Divine love to hold the 
truest and noblest religion which has ever stimulated aspiration, en- 
couraged hope, and comforted the spirit when beset by trials, 
ties, and sorrows. It contains hundreds of homes where the correct 
and loving principles of the Bible prevail. It contains scores of vil- 
lages, some beginning to rise to civic dignity, where the spires of 
churches pierce the surrounding foliage, where school-houses send 
forth their bands of children, where busy industry sings its daily song, 
where wealth concentrates, and public spirit advances. It contains 
tracts of country where fifty years ago the forests only waved, but 
now dotted with plantations sustaining and enriching their owners. 
In these homes and communities children are born year by year who 
are Liberians purely and simply, with' ;ie tie binding them to 

this country beyond ancest: i.ition, like that which binds you 

and me to England, France, Holland, or Germany. Around these 
thousands of colonists increasing in number and influence, are seen 
the children of Africa itself, admiring the power of men of their own 
color and capacities, and seeking by close j on to rise to the 

same level. They come not as to strangers, but as brother to brother, 
asking for themselves and their children the political and religious 
advantages which have already lifted those who have returned from 



exile. I have not overdrawn the picture. Let a man read or let him 
spend a month on the Atlantic and pass over to the Dark Continent, 
and the reality will be far more impressive than the description. No, 
no; you cannot blot out Liberia, It has reached the point where it 
can smile at sneers, for it no longer halts. With easier movement 
year by year, it proves that the tottering steps of the past were not of 
old age, but of infancy ; that its former weakness and simplicity giv- 
ing advantage to every other nation preceded manhood and not decay. 
An advantage no African government, from Morocco to the Cape, 
possesses, attaches itself to Liberia, as it holds itself in closest relation 
with oiir own country where millions of the Negro race have already 
gained many of the advantages of Christian civilization. Among 
these the question of emigration is constantly stirring the he'arts of 
the wisest and best, and the streams which turn to Africa grow larger 
every year. Such facts may rightly warrant the belief that Liberia 
has already passed the worst dangers besetting the earlier life of a 
nation, and warrant the anticipation of a future of a still firmer pros- 
perity. 

What is the meaning of this success? Granting the reality of pres- 
ent attainment, of what special interest is it to us. It means just what 
such men as Samuel J. Mills, and Robert Finley, and Bushrod Wash- 
ington, and Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Lott Cary, and scores and 
hundreds of other Christian patriots, two generations ago, intended it 
should mean. It is the success of a combined Christianity and Re- 
publicanism upheld by Africans on Africa's own shores. And is not 
that enough to touch the heart and prompt the service of Amer- 
icans of every race ? In the very Constitution of Liberia, while relig- 
ious liberty is jealously maintained and religious tests abolished, the 
Christian religion is acknowledged as the grand source of the high- 
est blessings. To extend Bible Christianity is the glorious aim of ev- 
ery earnest follower of the great Redeemer of men. Nineteen cen- 
turies ago, He, at whose feet our noblest civilization still is sitting, 
looked forth from the Mount of Olives with a vision that swept the 
globe. With amazement, His followers, few and feeble as they were, 
heard these words; "All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth, 
go ye therefore and disciple all nations." From that hour a conquest 
began which, with strange ebbings indeed, has never ceased its ad- 
vance. A new civilization, founded on a Divine revelation of mercy 
and a Divine command to recognize and develop the brotherhood of 
humanity, began to flash its light amid the philosophies of Greece and 
the camps of conquering Rome. One continent after another accepted 
the religion of Jesus, and the Book which proclaimed His truth be- 



6 

came one of the most important factors in social and civil life. Slow- 
ly but surely the ideas of the Crucified Nazarene supplanted all other 
religions. Asia, whence the Gospel sprang, was swept by the heresy 
of Mahomet, which linked an eternal truth to an eternal lie. The 
truth lifted men from the savagery of heathenism, but then became 
conservative when moral progress had just begun. The lie of the 
Arabian prophet made bigotry and hatred supremest virtues, and im- 
peded all moral elevation for twelve centuries, till Christianity in our 
own age began to retrace the paths her first ministers had trodden. 
In Europe the doctrines of Jesus ruled supreme, and in their purest 
form passed to our own shores. In Africa along the coast of the 
Mediterranean and the borders of the ocean, Christ's name and work 
were honored in early days, and then were almost extinguished by the 
reign of the Koran. But beyond the mere edges of this vast conti- 
nent no gleam of Christianity has ever shone. The larger portion of 
Africa's millions have never had the slightest knowledge of Jesus the 
Christ. These millions are chiefly massed in the interior, on that 
wonderful and varied surface which reaches from the Southern bor- 
der of the Sahara to the jungles which mark the course of the Zam- 
bezi as it turns to the Eastern ocean, and those which mark the Co- 
anza seeking the Western seas. We know them as Negroes, separa- 
ted by personal appearance and special race development from all the 
rest of human kind. Within this vast interior, amid these hosts of the 
moral subjects of God, only the most debasing forms of heathenism 
have found a home, crossed here and there by the Mahommedan doc- 
trines which have penetrated from the North. The Arab has come 
into the interior, with some of the force of earlier days, and has al- 
ready subdued savage tribes, lifting them indeed above their fellows. 
but alas ! only lifting them to become worse despots and tyrants. At 
last, in our own times, the banner of the Cross was carried by a mission- 
ary explorer into the very heart of the great peninsula, and scores 
of devoted travelers have followed the " weaver boy of Blantyre "in 
the direction to which his heaven-sent enthusiasm first pointed* 
Before the century closes, the geographical features and social condi- 
tion of the long-sealed continent will undoubtedly be disclosed, and 
that land which Christian love first opened, Christian generosity 
and sacrifice are striving to-hold. But at what a cost is it done. Every 
fresh revelation seems to present new obstacles. The white man of 
the past has created a bitter prejudice against the white man of the 
present, for it was by his greed chiefly that the slave-traffic became 
extended till hate and discord were planted through every kingdom. 
Beyond this prejudice, climatic conditions and race distinctions raise 



barriers which declare that a permanent occupation by the white man 
is impossible. The Christianity oi Europe and America is making 
noble sacrifices, and heroes of the faith are seizing single points here 
and there only to pass over their work after a few months or years, as 
they die martyrs to their devotion. We but quote from missionary 
reports which bring such facts as these ;" Out of \x~] Wesleyan mis- 
sionaries sent out in forty years, fifty-four died on the field, thirty- 
nine in one year from their arrival, and thirteen of the survivors re- 
turned home in less than two years after reaching Africa. Half of 
the one hundred and nine missionaries sent out by the English 
Church Missionary Society in thirty years, died at their posts and 
fourteen more returned home." And so the list is given in every 
Society. We do not sorrow over the sacrifice. Martyr blood has 
ever been the seed of the Church. But in God's wonderful wisdom 
there are other agents prepared for the extension of Christ's kingdom 
There are Christian Negroes by the hundreds and thousands who 
have learned the sweetness and light of Christ's truth through years 
of sorrow. These can be sought as the means by which Christianity 
can secure the firmest foothold and make the largest and most per- 
manent conquest. It was this inspiring idea which burned in the 
soul of Robert Finley, and Mills, and Ashmun, and Cary. They con- 
secrated this Society to more than temporal advantages. And when 
we look at Liberia with its scores of churches and Christian schools, 
not flourishing as exotics but upheld by the people themselves, we are 
bold to affirm that as a Christian attempt to enlarge the Kingdom of 
God, it is one of the wisest of the plans which the church at home can 
sustain. There have been forty years of missionary labor in China, and 
ten self-supporting Chinese churches are the result, Liberia is filled 
with churches and schools. Their members are pushing into the in- 
terior every hour, and new communities are founded. One such 
church with pastor and people of the same race is worth a hundred so- 
called churches holding on to some foreign missionary as to its only 
source of life, and ready to sink into the surrounding heathenism if 
disease strikes the exile down. The domestication of fifteen thou- 
sand black men on African shores, is an achievement in which the 
germs lie of a permanent conquest of Africa for Jesus Christ. The 
appeal of Liberia for prayer and sympathy and aid, should stir every 
church at home, for it is the appeal of the best equipped 'missionary force 
that the church knows. The banner of the Cross is there upheld not 
by a single foreign hand, not by a few families separate in appearance 
and mode of thought from races around them, but it floats at the head 
• of an organized army of believers, it is borne by Negroes themselves 



8. 

who look to the same Redeemer we adore, who have chosen theit 
fathers' home for their own earthly years, and whose motto above all 
expressive of merely temporal aims is. Christ for Africa, and Africa 
for Christ. 

Passing, however, from this highest point of view, there is anoth- 
er meaning to the prosperity of Liberia which should awaken a con- 
stantly increasing interest. There are forms of government which 
present some admirable features. But our American hearts warm 
the most and beat the tenderest to political institutions which are "of 
the people, by the people, and for the people," which recognize no 
distinctions between men but those which spring from voluntary ac- 
tion, and which afford the individual the fullest, freest opportunity 
for the development of his powers. Few and far between on earth 
are governments which make possible such lives as those of Lin- 
coln and Garfield. In the whole of Africa there is but one, and that 
one is Liberia. Kingly absolutism, colonial dependency on foreign 
armies, and race republicanism mingled with forms of slavery, are 
found in all the others. We can use of Liberia alone the words which 
our great historian Motley, so truly uttered of our own land: — "This 
nation stands on the point toward which other people are moving — 
the starting point, not the goal. It has put itself, or rather Destiny 
has placed it, more immediately than other nations, in subordination 
to the law governing all bodies political as inexorably as Kepler's law 
controls the motions of the planets. The law is progress; the result, 
Democracy'' As our own ancestors wrought out the problem, so the 
good and wise founders of Liberia believed that the Negro race could 
work out its own development in the region of earth first designated 
by Divine Providence for its home. Where no social forces resulting 
from the mingling of the European or the Asian should interpose ob- 
stacles, they founded the Negro Republic, regardless of the sneers 
with which that foundation was laid. They pressed upon the early 
colonists the perils to which free governments are exposed, but none 
the less did they believe that it was the best and truest form of polit- 
ical life. For thirty-four years Liberia has been known as a free and 
independent nation. Those at the helm of power have found it no 
holiday task. Yet year by year every impartial observer can mark 
advance. The messages of such men as the Presidents Roberts, and 
Benson, and Warner, and Gardner, show a development which is al- 
ready proving to every gainsayer that the Negro is capable of self-gov- 
ernment. As one of their own writers recently pointed out, Liberia,, 
after varied experiences, has emerged into a condition where the na- 
tion is "confident, hopeful and self-reliant." Who that has studied 



1 

history could expect more? The colonies of America required fifty, 
eighty, one-hundred years of constant fostering before the slightest 
signs of native strength appeared. And who should rejoice over this 
growth more than the children of freedom in our own land? Putting 
aside the fact that the founders of Liberia were born here, that its re- 
cruiting colonists came from the ranks of our own citizens, the very 
character of the government appeals to our hearty and constant sym- 
pathy. It is our own system reproduced, it is the spectacle of anoth- 
er race working upward on the same path which. we have trodden. 
We know what obstacles they must meet by our own experience, and 
we cheer them on by the hope which once filled the hearts of our 
fathers and now fills our own. Can any American allow the shadow 
of colonial enmity to blast the growth of this offspring of liberty? A 
thousand times we should answer, No. We hear of foreign traders 
defying Liberian laws and threatening European force against her if 
she maintains them. The American people will have a word to say, 
we think, if ever the attempt is made. We exercise no protectorate, 
but we do extend the hand of sympathy. That.-;. . bould even 

now be so expressed, that Liberia should feel emboldened to take her 
stand on her undoubted national rights, and exercise her undoubted 
nat i nal duties. There is a bit of America in Africa to-day which 
America at home means shall have fair play, even if that seems to stretch 
the .'lonroe doctrine. This colonial annexation system by European 
governments has already been checked by the statesman whose ideas 
overn England. As against internal disorder and heathen or 
Mahometan attack we can trust the young Republic to its own 
strength, guided and increased by God. We believe that it will subdue 
such foes by steady Christian kindness as much as by the exercise of mil- 
itary force. We believe that if unhindered by European selfishness 
the growth of the Republic will extend toward the heart of the Con- 
tinent where Dr. Blyden declares the true manhood of Africa exists 
to-day, and the two streams, one from the shore and one from the cen- 
tre, will mingle their knowledge, power, and aspirations, to become, 
as a united people under a free government, like one of their own 
magnificent ud.es on whose shores every fruit of a true prosperity 
may abound, and over whose waters the friendly flags of every race 
may wave. 

In the position this Society holds toward the Republic, its mission 
is not yet accomplished. We may believe Liberia already a success, 
yet may freely admit that it has not yet attained the strength it must 
possess before our anxieties may cease. It is independent of our 
counsels and guidance, it never can be independent of our sympathy. 



10 

Nay, it asks for that sympathy 'so that its own advantages in its ov 
appointed work may be fully set forth, The Negro race of Ameri 
asks advice or aid; it must be given by this body. Church and Sta 
alike need to be enlightened and stimulated, channels of trade ne< 
to be indicated, and more than all, emigration should be guided ar 
protected. We rejoice to know that the best thought of our Neg 
citizens recognizes with growing clearness the simple and sincere ph 
lanthropy which animates this Society, and that increasing numbe 
are freely choosing African homes. In spite of all'sneers and outcri 
we believe they choose wisely. As Liberia rises in the scale the chil 
ren of those Negroes who remain here will learn that the sentime 
tal or partisan theories which held their fathers to these shores we 
of little value compared to the brave earnestness which led others 
seek a country of their own. As African manhood grows on Afric; 
shores, it must advance with far more rapidity and .permanence th; 
in a country where centuries of oppression not only have debased 
but created an atmosphere of feeling which no human law can reac 
To show to the struggling individual or family that God Himself h 
opened a way of escape from such distinctions of race as will be mai 
for a century to come, and to point them to a home in the land 
their ancestors, this Society must hold on its way till Liberia its< 
assumes the labor and starts a bureau of colonization sustained by i 
own means. 

Such a completion will bring the joy of a full success, and such 
completion we may anticipate in a no very distant future. It has be 
a long and trying labor amid the bitter political struggles of our cou 
try to sustain this organization, but its aims have been so pure and 
trust in God so firm that its present success has been attained. T 
foundation stones of another Republic we believe have been perm 
nently laid, and the very toil and care demanded in that work mi 
guide safely our prediction of what the future must disclose. Int 
great commercial city close to my own New Jersey home, I som 
times pass deep excavations in which, week after week, the patie 
workmen toil. The rushing crowds above them scarcely deign 
look, only a few stragglers now and then peering over the brink wi 
curio i Little those builders care. By the very care they tal 

by the very time they consume, th :y show that they understand wh 
a structure they int< i ar. On such foundations only the lord 

building rises where merchants may carry on their world-reachi 
business, or millionares may shelter and preserve their costly treasun 
And so the first three-score years of Liberia's history are no wast 
years. The foundations laid by earnest men are slowly rising abo 



11 

surface. No shouts of conquest, no applause of the people, may 
e been gained. We may say of the young Republic as Heber 
% of the first temple; 

"No workman's steel, no pond'rous axes rung, 
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung." 

et those foundations foretell the character of a nation soon to be. 
ation self-ruled by principles based on a Bible-taught religion. A 
ion eager by voluntary desire for service and sympathy rather than 
conquest, and rising to eminence on the lines of action which the 
itest Teacher of the universe indicated when He proclaimed "Who- 
/er of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all." A nation 
; to walk abreast with other peoples, in its self-respect and energy, 
t exchanges the special gifts won by its own labor from a tropic 
, in the world's great market. A nation blest of God and esteemed 
ill true men. This is the Liberia of the future to which the Libe- 
of the present points our gaze. The night is passing and the 
n breaks into day. By the signs of that coming glory, all that 
>e who have toiled so faithfully in the work of upbuilding this 
it cause, need to-day is what a great thinker pronounced the secret 
11 lasting suceess: Courage, courage, courage! 



The Present Crisis 



IN THE WORK OF 



m 



rican Colonization Society, 



AN ADDRESS 



BY 



BISHOP WM. R. NICHOLSON, D. D. 

PELIVERED IN WASHINGTON, D. f, , 



AT THE 



SIXTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING 



T 



@ American 



n 



u 




Ja«s.-u.a,r57- ITtla, 1882. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



WASHINGTON CITY: 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue, 

1882. 



ADDRESS. 



It is an old proverb, Man's extremity is God's opportunity. There 
might well be another proverb — God's opportunity is man's urgency. 
When special movements of Divine Providence are abroad in the 
earth, it is then our duty and interest to take observations, to heed 
warnings, to catch inspiration, to act with promptness. A grand 
movement of God, specially apparent at this time, is the solving the 
problem by the logic of events, of the destiny of our freedmen, and, 
concomitantly, the opening up of Africa to the light of Christianity, 
the interests of commerce, and the development of civilization. 
God's opportunity is man's urgency. Never were the claims of the 
American Colonization Society to the devoted support of the friends 
of the Gospel and of human amelioration so enforced as now by those 
Almighty influences, which seem to enter, at chosen junctures, witli 
wondrous effect into the affairs of men; and never so inspiring has 
been the sublime hopefulness of its work. Our duty is plain ; our 
zeal should catch fire, our courage become transcendent. 

There are tides in the affairs of men. Impulses — strange, unex- 
pected, contagious, enthusiastic-- take their rise from time to time in 
great masses of men, and bear right onward to glorious consumma- 
tion many a rich freightage of human weal. Individual men, it is 
true, by heroic patience, and persistent effort, and a determined 
stand for principle, may do much, especially in the way of getting a 
people ready for the flow of the tide, whenever that may be; but it is 
only when the tide does flow, when great numbers of men are stirred at 
the same moment and uplifted by the same thoughts, that, as regard's 
any far-reaching social movement, triumphant success is achieved. 
History teems with examples, and with reference to such crises in 
affairs we are accustomed to say, "The times were ripe." When 
Luther began to preach the distinctive doctrines of the great Re- 
formation, how many evangelical workers for truth and righteous- 
ness had already appeared and had exhausted themselves? In the 
Providence of God they had been gradually making ready, in many 
lands, for the grand outburst of a gospel enthusiasm of nations. 
It is not that Luther, simply as Luther, exerted so tremendous an in- 



fluence; he was just the mouthpiece of millions behind him, and it 
was to their thoughts and feelings he gave voice. When the tea was 
pitched over-board in Boston harbor, the thirteen colonies trembled in 
sympathy from Massachusetts to the Carolinas. A pebble, as by the 
linger of God, was let fall into the sea of a new nationality, and lo! 
what concentric waves of feeling, one after another, larger and larger, 
spreading over the entire surface of the waters, and only ceasing to 
spread when had been reached the solid shores of American 
Independence. 

There are tides in human affairs, and happy they who are appointed 
to float their work upon the flood of a wide-spread interest. Others 
may have preceded them — must have preceded them — toiling in 
secret and in quiet, toiling in the midst and in spite of opposition, 
preparing for the auspicious moment, laying broad and deep the 
foundations of a people's concerted action; but it is only when the 
people's outburst of convictions shall have come, that the sweets of 
assured success are tasted and enjoyed. 

We have arrived, I think, at one of such junctures in the history of 
God's providence, for, as I judge of it, the American Colonization 
Society is just now in the act of cresting the wave. For more than 
sixty years it has been a persistent, courageous, far-seeing worker in 
one of the holiest causes that were ever endeared to the human 
heart. Its little band of clear-thinking, determined, philanthropic 
men have gone on tugging against the lethargic indifference well 
nigh everywhere prevailing for many long years, and in some instan- 
ces, against fiercest opposition ; at the same time disseminating seed- 
thoughts, keeping their work aloft in the view of all, working out 
some most important successes, making ready for God's chosen mo- 
ment in the future. And now, at length, underneath our finger's 
ends, are the quickening pulses of an epidemic of interest. Events 
in quick succession have riveted attention to this form of Christian 
philanthropy ; meanwhile these arguments of God's Providence are 
multiplying, and are such as may be felt. Accordingly, suscepti- 
bility of impression as regards the excellence and the grandeur of 
colonization, now already widely existent, is evidently extending, 
and. as regards the commercial possibilities of its future, even selfish- 
ness is beginning to thrill with desire. The Society is standing to- 
day at the threshold of another and grander stage of its work. 

This is no exaggeration. Let the facts speak for themselves. In 
order to this, and in illustration of what I regard as the present crisis 
in the work of the American Colonization Society, I proceed to pass 
in brief review the remarkable concurrence of circumstances in the 
midst of which its work must now be done. 



First, we have in our country, 4,000,000 freedmen. These per- 
sons, formerly slaves under our laws, have recently been made, by 
our own act as a sovereign people, our fellow-citizens. This is, in 
itself, a prodigious fact. 

But these persons are of a peculiar race, and between them and 
the dominant race of this country a great gulf is fixed. True, they 
are equal with ourselves before the laws of the land, which is as it 
should be; but they are not equal with ourselves in the courts of 
sentiment and custom — imperious courts, whose domineering decrees 
are iron-clad, and from them there is practically no appeal. The 
black man is here under social disabilities. He is not admitted into 
Anglo-Saxon society. He belongs to a hereditary caste. His very 
existence is a reminder of social inferiority. His sphere of action is 
one of fixed and hopeless subordination. Individuals among them 
may achieve greatness, nevertheless, the dominant sentiment of our 
country is evermore saying, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. 
These disabilities are an incubus on his spirits, a nightmare to his. 
motions, a burden crushing his energies, a drag obstructing his pro- 
gress. He has no fair field of personal development. Intellectually 
he may expand, but socially he cannot rise. Here he is doomed to 
grovel. This is a fact yet more prodigious. 

Can this fact fail to move the sensibilities of all thoughtful, be- 
nevolent Christian people ? Time was when, amid the entangling 
alliances of prejudice engendered by slavery, so many minds among 
us were unable, sympathetically, to estimate this inevitable social 
depression of a freedman ; but now that such prejudices have passed 
away, must not those other prejudices (call them such, if you please) 
in which is grounded the social ostracism of the free Neoro, be re- 
garded as creating a necessity for something more being done ( if 
that be possible) in behalf of those whom we have set free? That 
high appreciation of a man's moral worth which has prompted the 
American people to rejoice at the enfranchisement of these millions 
of human souls — can it fail to be the motive power of whatever fur- 
ther efforts may be practicable for securing to our freedmen more 
favorable circumstances of personal and social well-being ? It is im- 
possible that the sacredness of this obligation should not be recog- 
nized. It is recognized. We hear it announced in private conversa- 
tions ; we see it announced in the newspaper press. Thousands of 
hearts are this day palpitating with it. 

Nor are the freedmen themselves insensible to the disabilities of 
their situation. They feel the fact of their banishment from Anglo- 
Saxon social life. They are galled by the fetters of caste. They as- 



■ 

pare to be e jfti ac as of a reafaa of social equality. Accordingly, where 

salt; cciJr about :>.ooo free colored persons to Africa, there are to-day 

-. -jocJdag at its door for the privilege of passing thither. The 

:nay smc all be willing i s not to be expected, nor 

waanicl vefern instant abridge their liberty of choosing their own 



Hcudreds of tbaasaads there are. however . who are fast getting ready 

■:■■■■: ■.:-■.—■: : .:-;« -.-.-.: ..„>: i :;: -.:.:.: -■;; 

■..>:..-;:-- * ;• ; :.:■.- •„ : ■ . ~ ..: :; .-■ - : .. ;-.: ...l : . ;•.;-- . l> 
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■>: -:: : r.L. _-; -.. : ■: i.. . -. --.. i :"r.r .i. • .-f.'. 1 .:::■: ■:. ^.::r^: ;: 
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tssatooc -.3d they most fed it to be so more and 

snare. Mearwhile these yearnings of theirs for a coon try of their 
. ■'■- :,..-■: :_: :;ivrr. ::•. :■; - ; ;.:-.: i .--.v...,: -. •. - : :: * Ar.rr:i-. 



- - - - 
r>: . i -"-"•-- -i - - -•■ '• -• 

: -•" :■: lll: : - ■_ ;a_s: '.:-.:±: :~ $~?.ii ■ — _;; — i r.- 

~i :-: :r: ;;■:- :- : :£_t.z:: l~. :. r_ :.-- : 
- 1.-. oc the other hand, we see that Africa is waiting for 

them. They aire tbeaaselrves restless and yearning for a country of 
:.--: " ■ ~ iz.z ~ : ■< V: _-. - .: :..-.-..: : ■- ■ r. - :■. i\ ■ : rr.r.e 
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azjoe. " Thecr fathers were violently tarn from it and imp or te d into 

. - - 
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zr : - v.:t-y.z .--. - . - . ■-•--. 1 - . . -,: 

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: ' : " : - ". - - - ". - : ." -. . 

self falls the stup e n do us work of redeeming his own co untr y . 

— "■ it""-.". : : v t" tr "..".? " •- : l." ; *. :•■: : : r - : ::. - ;. - 1: r. t - •-- ~ 

- -- - . -. " :■ :" '_ : :t 

j t ."■'. i t i . : .-. ' ■ .' : z _ - : :>■: ~ z> ■". -. . . •. ". .:. - " . -— 7 1 i^- 
tions have been node into Sierra Leone by our FngKA friends. 
-- z :- - -7- - :- : : — : ." - . - ■: iz : _- : ; • .. z.i: - -^-. :-_-.- 
- ■ ' " - . - A : : — y. r"_i: - - ;. . : :et ~ ~ l i t : ■ ". r. 7 A ~ er ;..-. 

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H _n i; : 

: : "t - " -- i-7- :' i : : zv.-tz.' ~ rt- it — y. ~ - : r : : - . -t 
than enough to do in so vast an enterprise. Thus it is that their 
:~r. : .-.-.-■ r - — l. : - ^ : - : _r :>— 1~ tr. 

F:r v.t-7 r:. ^.. r.;r. :~:r: ":--:-:'r : — t :': ~ : .-.- 7' 
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'. : -:-t :'r ~. Zi-.i: :-- \r.L^. l::.-.::^ - - . t : : .tyt:t ~Jz. :>e 
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: ".'-.: - -. , -. - • A - 4- - : . . - : : •. . lt- : - 

hz-i r.t-1 -_ A:r. ::£ i_r A:: _ r.e-r-ii :."-e~ 

A:A ;--:- :ie ::~ ;Ai iii.;-.^: n; : .-•:- r: :tr.:t 
On the one hand the fceedmen"s call and Africa's ansnei. and on 
:^t .:: 7- ;.- ; .-.:-;.- ... .- : : t :--r i" .' - ^ - t: r _-- 
vr;-.A ;-t J:: - -i.: - ;;.::t:y ..-.- l . ^ . . _-_. :-_--- :- 
:.r_g •. .t- _- ; :.- -. t- ::.t : _;A ;_ . i- : :.-- ::_:.: ^ - - 

7.-. .- :.■• A'.: - ■ ■ :.-. 7-7 -:.-:- l/r-tr-i N:: - • - _:..-- 
A' : . .: - ._• : - -Jr.t- : .-. i v. " r .7 r. ; — e " :.:;-.-: r.ii • -: -. a 
y-t'..-.. y: .■ iti :':: :'-;.: -7:7;::- 7. - ^.f : ;- 1 .7^r ^r. : 
:-_5". : — 5 =_- : . "_ :." ■■ _r :r~ ■: — tr r. = -. : .- .-■_ _: - 

miliar — in a word, as if their experiences here bad been lined bodi- 
ly, and wafted thither upon the winds of the Atlantic. To tht - 
: -- ~~_ :;t7 :::..- ^ : . - : f : --. : ~7 .7 ; _ \r r :~: . i"S 



strange strand of his as yet unfamiliar fatherland, the circumstances- 
of Liberia are already vocal with his own familiar joys, and shout him 
a grateful home welcome, in the new career on which he has entered. 

The origination of Liberia is due to the philanthropic statesman- 
ship of the United States Government, under President Monroe 
in connection with the benevolence, and wisdom, and heroic persist- 
ence of the American Colonization Society; while mainly from the 
latter, among whose members in the past we are proud to pro- 
nounce the names of Henry Clay, President Monroe, Bishop Meade 
of Virginia, and others of like eminence, has come the fostering c?-e, 
which has brought it through sixty years to its present strength an N 
prosperity. It is the localization in Africa of a body politic of the 
freedmen from this country. It is a Republic modeled after that of 
the United States, with whose nomenclature and functions they are 
familiar. It is an established government, an independent State, 
and is now recognized as such by all the great nationalities of 
Christendom. It is a territory of 600 miles of sea-coast by some 
hundreds of breadth, secured first by honest payment, then won by 
the hard work of the Colonists from " the sinewy boar and the 
stealthy leopard, " and won again by their skill and heroic bravery 
from the yell of the perfidious and murderous savage, whose lands 
are among the richest and best on the continent, and whose many 
valuable productions are inviting, and maintaining an ever increas- 
ing commerce. 

Liberia is now a beacon light in the darkness of Africa. Her fif- 
ty or sixty churches, her earnest clergymen, her common schools and 
high school and college, the acknowledged scholarship of some of her 
prominent men, her legislative assemblies, her courts of justice, her 
able officers, her protection by law of person and property. These all 
are her glory. Her usages of society she has taken from ourselves. 
Her comforts of life are those which we are accustomed to enjoy. 
And already she has made herself felt as a power in the world, for the 
slave barracoons she has swept away, and the slave trade she has abol- 
ished from the whole length of her coast, and even the domestic slav- 
ery in the native tribes of her territory she has entirely suppressed. 
Her twenty thousand citizen freedmen have made the authority of 
her laws supreme over a million native Negroes.besides bringing over 
200,000 of them under the elevating influences of her institutions. In 
fine, she is^Christian, enlightened, civilized, Americanized. 

This is Liberia, as she stands.with outstretched hands, to welcome 
back the returning children of Africa. And yet, hardly more than 
twenty thousand freedmen are counted within her borders. Just im- 



agine one hundred thousand of our four millions to be domiciled in 
that soverign State. What an accession of strength. What would 
be the impetus of development, the enthusiasm of purpose and hope, 
the victorious march of a beneficent power, through many a dusky 
tribe of the swarming interior. 

Fourthly — We have before us the significant fact that the world's 
knowledge of Africa has been recently so very much enlarged. What 
a locked-up region of the earth it has always been. Geographers 
have known next to nothing of the contents of its immensity. Now, 
however, the map-maker is able to dot the surface of Africa with for- 
ests, and rivers, and lakes, and towns, and cities, in such profusion as 
would have been regarded as fabulous twenty years ago. But the 
very surprising thing is, that the most of these recent additions to our 
geographical knowledge have come about since the date of President 
Lincoln's signature to the decree of Emancipation. Simultaneously 
with the liberation of the millions of slaves in this country, the work 
of exploring Africa.and of making the world acquainted with its hid- 
den interior, has seemed to spring forward as by a new inspiration, 
and now the long-kept secrets of that repellaht continent arc being 
revealed. Just as the pressing need of further knowledge was coming 
to be felt, a furor of discovery took possession of certain daring spir- 
its in differents parts of Christendom, and behold! the geographical 
enigma of the world lies unfolded to the gaze of mankind. We see 
how charming a country is the hitherto great unknown, and that an 
increased power of attractiveness is being brought to bear upon the 
sensibilities of Anglo-Saxon and Negro alike. Is not this a striking 
conjunction of affairs? Is it not the voice of God well-nigh made au- 
dible? Is He not saying to us, Africa is gloriously worthy of your best 
endeavors? and to the freedmen, Go forward with haste? 

Thus have we passed in rapid review that remarkable concurrence 
of circumstances, to which I have referred as at this juncture render- 
ing so forceful the interests of colonization. The four millions of 
freedmen in our land — the waiting of Africa for their return — the 
home-like Liberia —the vast enchanting improvements in the geog- 
raphy of Africa within the time elapsed since our abolition of slavery— 
in these four facts we have the present glorious crisis in the work of 
this Society. Perhaps I might add, that if the United States Govern- 
ment were a little more pronounced in its kindly offices toward Li- 
beria, its own offspring, but little would remain to be desired as re- 
gards the present advantages of the cause of colonization. Not that 
we would have our Government depart from its traditions in its 
non-interference in the affairs of other governments; but in the well- 



10 

chosen words of Commodore Shufeldt, "A friendly note to a friendly 
Power, simply indicating that we take an active interest in Liberia, 
and would not be willing to see her territory curtailed or her trade re- 
stricted, and the occasional visit of an American man-of-war to indi- 
cate to the tribes within Liberian boundaries that the laws of Libe- 
ria must be respected:" that were all to be desired. It were a sub- 
lime expression of the moral sense of this Government; and politically 
justifiable by the fact of its original interests in Liberia.by the enor- 
mous debt this country owes to her freedmen, and by the dawning 
prospects of the commercial prosperity of our intercourse with that 
rich and growing State. Aside from this, however, and looking at 
the remarkable concurrence of circumstances actually existing, can it 
be doubted that the work of this Society is now more needed than ev- 
er, and, in fact, that it may now take at the flood a grand tidal wave 
of God's gracious Providence? What magnificent auspices under 
which to carry on a great work of Christian philanthropy. What a 
series of calls and answers — Providential reciprocities, Divine adapta- 
tions; day unto day uttering speech, night unto night showing knowl- 
edge. God's opportunity is man's urgency; and hope, and courage, 
and enthusiasm should inspire our efforts. 

But that wonderful combination of facts which we have been re- 
viewing is only as the prepared channel for our energies; the supply 
of energv can only come from a deep appreciation of the work itself. 
The proper advancement of human beings — the moral and social de- 
velopment of our freedmen — the promotion of human progress— the 
civilization of savage tribes— the elevation of our degraded humanity 
—the Christianization of Africa's dusky myriads — the leading of help- 
less souls to the Saviour of sinners — these are the motive powers, and 
as they are kept vivid and influential in the mind, so shall we be 
quirk and effective in taking advantage of the swelling sympathies 
of the; hour. 

It specially behooves us to understand that a grander Gospel 
missionary enterprise there cannot be than is just this work of the 
Colonization Society. The field is ripe for the harvest. A mighty 
continent overspread by heathenism, with its habitations of cruelty, 
and by Mohammedanism, with its polygamy and slavery, calls aloud 
for the aggressive benevolence of Christendom. But the Christian Ne- 
gro himself is the only effective missionary to his congeners in Africa, 
and a most effective missionary he is. Witness what has already been 
done in this direction by the small force in Liberia. 

Our churches should awake to the conviction that a tremendous 
power for the gospel in Africa is slumbering in the Christian Negroes 



11 

of our country, and that, as the indispensable means to the end, they 
should enable the Colonization Society to call forth and apply that 
now slumbering power. We do not begin to appreciate this gigan- 
tic power which God has placed at our disposal. Permit me to sketch 
it for you. See that slave-boy. He was bartered for a horse and re- 
turned as an unfair exchange, and on two subsequent occasions was 
bartered for rum and tobacco. His spirit was then so broken that he 
tried to commit suicide. He was afterwards sold to Portuguese tra- 
ders, rescued by an English vessel, converted to Christianity, educa- 
ted and ultimately ordained, and was consecrated a Bishop. The 
parents from whom the slave had been wrenched in his childhood he 
met again after a separation of twenty-five years. His heathen rela- 
tives received from him their first knowledge of the Gospel, and his 
mother died under the roof of her son's Episcopal residence. He 
founded a notable mission, perhaps the most successful in the world. 
He has confronted heathen monarchs, and told them their sins. He 
has grappled with the slave trade, with cannibalism, with polygamy, 
with heathen ignorance, with Mohammedan fanaticism. More than 
once he has been captured and his life imperiled, but he still lives to 
preach the everlasting gospel;his work is a bright light in a dark place, 
his presence is a benediction to the wretched serfs of superstition, his 
gray hairs are a crown of glory. This is my sketch. Do you call me 
a sensational novelist? Nay, in this, as in other instances, truth is 
stranger than fiction. I have but given yon a narrative of facts. It is 
the life of Samuel Crowther.the Negro Bishop of the Church of Eng- 
land," who was seized as a boy by a Mohammedan gang in 1821, went 
through all the vicissitudes detailed above, and established the great 
mission of which he now has charge, and of which the Secretary of 
this Society has written that"Christendom knows not of any other such 
mission as the Niger mission of the Church Missionary Society." 
Is this not a record of power ? But is it anything more than as the 
bud to the blossom ? For how many a Crowther.unconscious and un- 
heeded, may be slumbering away among our frecdmen ? Ye friends 
of Christian enlightenment everywhere.ye believers in Jesus Christ in 
all the churches, awake, awake to the magnitude of the subjeot. Come 
up" to the help of the Colonization Society in its efforts to transfer 
this gigantic power to where it is so much needed, and thus move on- 
ward with God Himself in this majestic march of His Providence. 
Give to the Society your sympathy.your moral support.your material 
aid, and say to her in strength-giving tones, and as well in deeds as in 
words, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord 
is risen upon thee! " 



THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE 



African C 



FRICAN COLONIZATION 



THE ANNUAL DISCOURSE 

DELIVERED \l I Hi 

SIXTY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

American Colonization Society, 

held in ihi 

>ork Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, 

Sunday, January 14, 1883, 



EDWARD WILMOT BLYDEN. LL. D.. 

President of Liberia College. 

l>l-<HLlSHF.n ji\- REQl'F<T Ol' THE SOCIETY. 



WASHINGTON CITY .• 
Colonization Building. 450 Pennsylvania Avenue, 

.883. 



DISCOURSE 



The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as 1 have 
thought, so shall it come i0 pass; v.nd \s i n we purposed, so 
shall it STAND."— Isaiah xiv-24. 

Perhaps it would satisfy the evolutionist or agnostic if the passage 
were read as lollows :— "Surely as it has been conceived so shall it 
come to pass; and as it has been purposed, so shall it stand." For 
there is not a thinking being, whatever his religious belief, who does 
not at once recognize the fact that everything in the physical and 
moral world proceeds according to some plan or order. Thai some 
subtle law, call it by whatever name you please, underlies and regu- 
lates the movements of the stars in their courses and the sparrows in 
their flight. It is also the belief of all healthy minds that that law 
or influence is always tending towards the highest Rnd best n ill 
that its prerogative and design are to make darkness light, crooked 
things straight and rough places smooth ; or, in the misty phraseolo- 
gy of modern criticism, it is the" Eternal not ourselves that makes 
for righteousness,"— that its fiats are irrevocable and their outcome 
inevitable. With this understanding, men are now constructing the 
science of history, the science of language, the science of religion, the 
science of society, formulating dogmas to set aside dogma, and con- 
soling themselves that they are moving to a higher level and solving 
the problems of the ages. 

Anions: the conclusions to which study and research are conduct- 
ing philosophers, none is clearer than this —that each of the races of 
mankind has a specific character and a specific work. The science 
of Sociology is the science of race. 

In the midst of these discussions. Africa is forcing its claims for 
consideration upon the attention of the world, and science and phi- 
lanthropy are bringing all their resources to bear upon its explora- 
tion and amelioration. There is hardly an important city in Europe 
where there is notan organization formed for the purpose of dealing 
with some of the questions connected with this great continent. 

There is ' The International African Association," founded at 
Brussels, in 1876, of which the King of the Belgians is the patron. 



"The Italian National Association for the exploration and civiliza- 
tion of Africa." The " Association Espanola para la Esploracion del 
Africa." The King of Spain has taken great practical interest in 
this Society. " The German Society for the Exploration of Africa." 
founded in 1872 by the German Geographical Associations. It re- 
reives assistance from the government. The " Afrikanische Gesell- 
schaft," in Vienna, founded in 1876, also under royal patronage. " The 
Hungarian African Association, " founded in 1877. "The National 
Swiss Committee for the Exploration of Central Africa." The 
French Government and the French Chamber of Com- 
merce have made large grants of money to aid in Afri- 
can exploration. Then there is an African Association at Rot- 
terdam, besides the great Royal Geographical Society of England, 
which has a special fund for African researches, and has recently sent 
Thomson to explore the snow covered mountains of eastern Africa. 

This anxiety to penetrate the mysteries of Africa, this readiness 
to turn from the subtleties of philosophy and the fascinations of sci- 
■nce, to deal with the great physical fact of an unexplored continent, 
is not a new experience in the world. The ancients were equally con- 
cerned. With a zealous curiosity overcoming the promptings of the 
finer sentiments and the desire for military glory, Ca>sar proposed to 
abandon his ambitious exploits lor the privilege of gazing upon the 
source of the Nile. 

The modern desire for more accurate knowledge of Africa is not 
a mere sentiment; it is the philanthropic impulse to lift up the mil- 
lions of that continent to their proper position among the intellectu- 
al and moral forces of the world ; but it is also the commercial de- 
sire to open that vast country to the enterprises of trade. Europe is 
overflowing with the material productions of its own genius. Impor- 
tant foreign markets, which formerly consumed these productions, 
ue now closing against them. Africa seems to furnish the only large 
outlet for them, and the desire is to make the markets of Soudan 
easily accessible to London. Manchester and Liverpool. The de- 
pressed factories of Lancashire are waiting to be inspired with new 
life and energy by the development of a new and inexhaustible trade 
with the millions of Central Africa; so that Africa, as frequently in 
the past, will have again to come to the rescue and contribute to the 
needs of Europe. Emergencies drove homeless wanderers to the 
shores of Libya : — 

" Defessi /Eneadae, quae proxima litora, cursu 
Contendunt petere, et Libyae vertuntur .id oras."* 

Virgil's -VikkI. 



But the plans proposed by Europeans for opening up Africa, as 
far as they can be carried out by themselves, are felt to be inade- 
quate. Many feel that commerce, science, and philanthropy may es- 
tablish stations and trace out thoroughfares, but they also feel that 
these agencies are helpiess to cope fully with the thousand questions 
which arise in dealing with the people. 

Among the agencies proposed for carrying on the work of civiliz- 
ation in Africa, none has proved so effective as the American Colo- 
nization enterprise. People who talk of the civilizing and elevating 
influence of mere trade on that continen', do so because they are un- 
acquainted with the facts. Nor can missionaries alone do this work. 
We do not object to trade, and we would give every possible encojr- 
agement to the noble efforts of missionaries. We would open the 
country everywhere to commercial intercourse. We would give 
everywhere hospitable access to traders. Place your trading factories 
at every prominent point along the coast, and even let them be 
planted on the banks of the rivers. Let them draw the 
rich products from remote districts. We say, also, send the 
missionary to every tribe and every village' Multiply through- 
out the country the evangelizing agencies. Line the banks 
of the rivers with the preachers of righteousness — penetrate 
the jungles with those holy pioneers — crown the mountain 
tops with your churches, and fill the valleys with your schools. No 
single agency is sufficient to cope with the multifarious needs of the 
mighty work. But the indispensable agency is the colony. Groups 
of Christian and civilized settlers must, in every instance, bring up the 
rear, if the results of ynur work are to be widespread, beneficial and 
enduring. 

This was the leading idea that gave birth to the Society whose 
anniversary we have met to celebrate. To-day we have the Sixty- 
Sixth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society. This 
fact by itself would excite no feeling, and perhaps no remark. But 
when we consider that although this is but the sixty-sixth year of its 
existence, it has been successful in founding a colony which has now 
been for thirty-five years an independent nation, acknowledged by 
all the Powers of the earth, we cannot but congratulate the 
organization upon an achievement which, considering the cir- 
cumstances, is unparalleled in the history of civilization ; and 
which must be taken as one of the most beautiful illustrations of the 
spirit and tendency of Christianity. 

When the Society began its work, its programme was modest, 
and in the early declarations of its policy it was found expedient to 



emphasize the simplicity of its pretensions and the singleness 
of its purpose. In describing its objects, one of the most 
eloquent of its early supporters — Dr. Leonard Bacon — 
said, " The Colonization Society is not a missionary society, nor a so- 
ciety for the suppression of the slave trade, nor a society for the im- 
provement of the blacks, nor a society for the abolition of slavery ; 
it is simply a society for the establishment of a colony on the coast of 
Africa." 

But in pursuance of its legitimate object, its labors have been fruitful 
in all the ways indicated in Dr. Bacon's statement. It has not only 
established a colony, but it has performed most effective missionary 
work; it has suppressed the slave trade along six hundred miles of 
coast; it has improved the condition of the blacks as no other means 
has; and it is abolishing domestic slavery among the Aborigines ol 
that continent. 

Like all great movements which are the outcome of human needs, 
and have in view the amelioration of the condition of large masses of 
people, it attracted to its support at the opening of its career, men of 
conflicting views and influenced by divers motives. Some of its ad- 
herents gave one reason for their allegiance, others gave another ; and 
sometimes to the superficial observer or to the captious opponent, 
these different reasons furnished grounds for animadversions against 
the Society. Though it owed its origin to the judicious heads and 
philanthropic hearts of some cf the best men that ever occupied po- 
sitions of prominence and trust in this nation, yet there were th >se 
who ridiculed the scheme as wild and impracticaDle. Some opposed it 
because they loved the Negro ; others discountenanced it because they 
hated th« Negro. Some considered that the Society in wishing to 
give him an opportunity for self-government, placed too high an esti- 
mate upon his ability ; others thought that the idea of sending him 
away to a barbarous shore was a disparaging comment upon his ca- 
pacity, and robbing him of his right to remain and thrive in the land of 
his birth. To not a few who neither loved nor hated the Negro — but 
were simply indifferent to him— the idea of transporting a few eman- 
cipated slaves to Africa with the hope of bringing about a general ex- 
odus of the millions in this country, or of building up a nation in that 
far-off land of such materials, seemed absurd and ridiculous. 

The Society was hardly fifteen ye^rs in operation when it met with 
organized opposition in the American Anti-Slavery Society, the 
founders of which looked upon the work of Colonization as an at- 
tempt to evade the duty and responsibility of emancipation. At 
this time Mr. William Llovd Garrison, a leaderof the abolition move- 



7 

ment, was the most eloquent and persistent of the assailants of the 
Society. He carried the war against it into England, and pursued 
with unrelenting scorn and invective Mr. Elliott Cresson, who was 
then representing the cause before the British public. In the inter- 
esting life of the great anti-slavery reformer, by Oliver Johnson, it is 
said that when Mr. Garrison returned to this country from England 
in 1833, he brought with him a 'Protest" against the Colonization 
scheme, signed by Wilberforce, Macaulay, Buxton, O'Connell and 
others of scarcely less weight. ' 

But Mr. Garrison ought to have known, and probably did know, 
that it was not the Colonization scheme as conceived by its founders 
that these philanthropists opposed, for they were men of a spirit kin- 
dred to that which animated Samuel J. Mills, and the Finleys and Cald- 
wells, whose labors brought the Society into being. What they did op- 
pose was the scheme as they saw it under the representations of Mr. 
Garrison, who, himself, benevolent at heart, had been influenced by per- 
sonal reasons and by the injudicious utterances of certain advocates 
of Colonization. They opposed it as they saw it through the gla s 
of such good old Negroes as Father Snowden of Boston, who, in 
those days, offered a prayer for the Colonization Society so sti iking 
in its eloquence as to have deserved a place, in the judgment of Mr. 
Oliver Johnson, in a serious narrative of the doings of the great 
anti-slavery leader — "O God," said the simple and earnest old man. 
"we pray that that seven-headed, ten-horned monster, the Coloniza- 
tion Society, may be smitten through and through with the fiery darts 
of truth, and tormented as the whale between the sword-fish and the 
thresher."^: 

I say that the friends of Africa in England did not oppose Afri< .'i> 
Colonization in itself, for just about the time of Mr. Garrison's 
to England, or very soon after, they adopted, under the lead ot Sir 
Thomas Fowell Buxton, a scheme for the regeneration of Africa by 
means of her civilized sons, gathered from the countries of their ex- 
ile ; and at great expense sent out an expedition to the Niger, for the 
purpose of securing on that river a hundred square miles of territory 
on which to settle the returning exiles. Capt.'« William Allen, who 
commanded the first Niger expedition, on his return in 1S34, when 
describing the advantages of a civilized colony, used these words: 

" The very existence of such a community, exalted as it would lie 



* William Lloyd Garrison and his Times, by Oliver Johnson, p. 130. 

t Garrison and kii Times, p ja. Mr. Oliver Johnson, throughout his work, shows his 

own conception of the status and functions of the Negro, by nevei usin<; a capital ' 
writing the word that describes the race. 



in its own estimation, and in the enjoyment of the benefits of civiliza_ 
tion, would excite among its neighbors a desire to participate in those 
blessings, and would be at once a normal or model society, gradually 
spreading to the most remote regions, and, calling forth the resourc- 
es of a country rich in so many things essential to commerce, might 
change the destinies of the whole of Western Central Africa."* 

In a letter addressed by Stephen Lushington and Thomas Fowell 
Buxton to Lord John Russell, August 7, 1840, all the arguments used 
by the American Colonization Society for colonizing civilized blacks 
in Africa, are reproduced. 

Thomas Clarkson, writing to a friend under date Sept. 12, 1842, 
says: "I am glad to find that in the Friend of Africa you lay such 
stress upon native agency, or the agency of the black 
people themselves to forward their own cause. Good sense would 
have dictated this ; but God seems to point it out as one of His plans. 
He has raised up a people by the result of emancipation, qualified 
both in intellect and habituation to a hot climate, to do for us the 
grand work in Africa. You know well that we can find among the 
emancipated slaves people with religious views and with intellectual 
capacity equal to the whites, and from these, principally, are we to 
pick out laborers for the African vineyard. * You 

cannot send two or three only to a colony. In the smallest colony 
there must be more ; there must be enough to form a society, both 
for the appearance of safety and for that converse for which man was 
fitted by the organs of speech to pass the time usefully to himself and 
others. "+ 

The experience of years and the progress of Liberia have only 
served to illustrate the soundness of these views. European workers 
lor Africa feel more and more the importance of such agencies as the 
Colonization Society has been instrumental in establishing for civiliz- 
ing Africa. A writer in the London Times for May 31st, 1882, says: 

'• As I have recently returned from Zanzibar, and can speak from 
some personal experience, may I be allowed to draw the attention of 
your readers to an attempt to bring about these results, viz.:— the 
abolition of the slave trade and civilization of the people— with re- 
markable success ? It is the formation of self-sustaining communities of 
released slaves in the countries whence they were originally brought 
by the slave- dealers, in order that by their example and influence 
they may teach to the surrounding people the advantages of civiliza- 
tion. The sight of a body of men of the same race as themselves, living 

* Narrative of the Expedition to the Niger. Vol. II.,. p 4;4 
1 . / frit an Repository^ Vol . xvi. p. 397. 



in their midst, but raised to a higher level by the influence of Chris- 
tianity and civilization, has naturally produced in them a desire of 
raising themselves also." 

In an able article on "The Evangelization of Africa," in the Dub- 
lin Review, January, 1879, written by a Roman Catholic Prelate, the 
writer asks — " Why should not the example given by the American 
Colonization Society in founding Liberia, be followed by us in other 
parts of Africa ?" 

In a lecture, delivered in 1872, in New York, by the same dis- 
tinguished author, he says : 

"We have come to evangelize the colored people in America. 
But our mission does not terminate with them. We are travelling 
through America to that great unexplored, unconverted continent 
of Africa. We have come to gather an army on our way, to con- 
quer Africa for the Cross. God has His designs upon that vast 
land. * * * * The branch torn away from the pa- 
rent stem in Africa, by our ancestors, was brought to America — 
brought away by divine permission, ip order that it might be en- 
grafted upon the tree of the Cross. It will return in part to its own 
soil, not by violence or deportation, but willingly, and borne on 
the wings of faith and charity," 

It is sometimes supposed and asserted that the efforts of the 
Colonization Society stir up a feeling of unre-t among the colored 
population, and make them dissatisfied with their condition in 
this country. But this charge is brought only by those who have 
no idea of the power of race instincts. The descendants of Africa 
in this country have never needed the stimulus of any organiza- 
tion of white men to direct iheir attention to the land of their 
fathers. Just as the idea of a departure from the house of b-sjndage 
in Egypt was in the minds of the Hebrews long before Moses was 
born, even when Joseph gave commandment concerning his bones; 
so long before the formation of the Colonization Society there we.re 
aspirations in the breasts of thinking Negroes for a return to the land 
of their fathers. The first practical Colonizationist was not a white 
man but a Negro, Paul Cuffee. This man took thirty Negro emi- 
grants from New Bedford in his own vessel to Africa in 181 5. The 
law of God for each race is written on the tablets of their hearts, and 
no theories will ever obliterate the deep impression or neutralize its 
influence upon their action; and in the process of their growth they 
will find or force a way for themselves. Those who are working with 
or for the race, therefore, should seriously consider in any great move- 
ment in their behalf, the steps which the proper representatives 



deem it wise to take . "March without the people," said a French 
deputy. " and you walk into night ; their instincts are a finger 
pointing of providence, always turning toward real benefit." 

The Colonization Society was only the instrument of opening a 
field for the energies of those of the Africans who desired to go and 
avail themselves of the opportunities there offered. Mr Boswell, in 
his life of Samuel Johnson, tells us that when the sale of Thrales" 
Brewery was going forward, Johnson was asked what he really consid- 
ered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of. He 
replied, "We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the 
potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." So the 
founders of this Society looked to the "potentiality" of the few seeds 
they were planting on the coast of Africa. In their reply to oppo- 
nents they said : " We are not here simply to send a few Negroes to 
Africa and to occupy with them a few swampy regions on the margin 
of a distant country, but we are endeavoring to stimulate for a race 
and a continent their potentiality of unlimited development," 

'I'}u\- assisted a few courageous men to go and plant a colonj on 
those distant and barbarous shores, in days when nearly every body 
doubted the wisdom and expediency of such a step. Who then could 
have divined the results ? Considering the circumstances of those 
pioneer settlers and the darkness of the outlook when they started, no- 
man could have believed until he learned it as a matter of history, 
that those few men cotdd have established an independent nation on 
that coast. The story of their trials and struggles and conquests 
would furnish the material for an exciting novel — many portions of 
it would resemble chapters not from Fronde or Hallam but from 
Thackeray or Scotl. The string of episodes in the first thirtyyears of 
their history would form the basis of an interesting epic. 

Now what is the work thus far accomplished and being accom- 
plished on that coast? If, when those colonists lauded on these shores 
inexperienced and uneducated ex-slaves as they were, they had had to 
contend with simple barbarism or the absence of civilization, their task 
would have been comparatively easy. But they had to deal with 
tribes demoralized by ages of intercourse with the mosl abandoned of 
foreigners -slave traders and pirates, who had taken up their abode 
at various points of the coast, and had carried on for generations, 
without interruption, their work of disintegration and destruction.. 
When, therefore, the colonists found themselves in possesion of a few 
miles of territory, the) very soon perceived that they had more to do 
than simply to clear up the land, build and cultivate. They saw that they 
had to contend not with the simple prejudices of the Aborigines but with 



the results of the unhallowed intercourse of European adventurers. 
But they were brave men. Their spirits, though chastened by the 
burden of slavery and the sorrows of oppression were never clouded 
by any doubt in their destiny. They felt themselves able to build up 
a State, and they set themselves cheerfully to deal with the new and 
difficult problems which confronted them. Fierce were the struggles 
in which they had to engage before they succeeded in expelling the 
pirates from the neighborhood of their settlements. And after they 
had dislodged these demons in human form, the mischievous conse- 
quences of their protracted residence in the land continued and still, 
to a great extent, continue. In his last message to the Liberian Legis- 
lature, the President of the Republic referring to the difficulties at 
Cape Mount says: "The native wars which have been going on in the 
vicinity of Cape Mount have now nearly exhausted themselves. These 
periodical wars are, for the most part, the results of long standing 
feuds arising from the horrible slave-trade, that dreadful scourge 
which distinguished the intercourse of the European world with Afri- 
ca for more than ten generations." 

Having secured an undisturbed footing in the land of their fathers, 
the next step on the part of the colonists was to conciliate the Abori- 
gines and to enlarge the borders of the Colony by purchase from the 
native lords of the soil. In this way the Colony increased in power 
and influence, until 1847, when it became a sovereign and independent 
State. As such it has been acknowledged by all the Powers of Eu- 
rope and by the United States. 

The special work which at this moment claims the attention of the 
Republic is to push the settlements beyond the sea-board to the el- 
evated and salubrious regions of the interior, and to incorporate the 
Aborigines, as fast as practicable, into the Republic. Native chiefs are 
summoned to the Legislature from the different counties and take 
part in the deliberations; but as yet only those Aborigines who con- 
form to the laws of the Republic as to the tenure of land, are allowed 
to exercise the elective franchise. All the other questions which press 
upon independent nations, questions of education, of finance, of com- 
merce, of agriculture, are receiving the careful attention of the people- 
They feel the importance of making provisions by judicious laws and 
by proper executive, legislative and judicial management, for the 
preservation and growth of the State. 

In educational matters there is daily noticeable encouraging im- 
provement. We are developing a system of common schools, with a 
College at the head as a guarantee for their efficiency. The educa- 
tional work is felt to be of the greatest possible importance ; education 



not only in its literary and religious forms, but also in its industrial, 
mechanical, and commercial aspects. 

The effort now is to enlarge the operations and increase the influ- 
ence of the College. The faculty has just been added to by the elec- 
tion of two new Professors in this country, young men of learning 
and culture, who will sail for their field of labor in a few weeks. 

It will be grati fying to the people of Liberia as well as to their friends 
on this side, to observe how heartily the press of this country, both 
secular and religious, has endorsed and commended this new move 
for the advancement of education in that land. The College now contains 
fifty students in the two departments, and it is hoped that the 
number will soon increase to hundreds, if we can only get the needed 
help. We have application for admission to its advantages from numer- 
ous youths in various institutions of learning in this country, who wish, 
on the completion of their course, to labor in Africa. Influential chiefs 
on thecoastand in the interior are also anxious to send their sons ; and 
we shall, before very long, have young men from the powerful tribes in 
our vicinity — Mandingoes, Foulahs, Veys, Bassas, Kroos, Greboes. 

A female department has also lately been established in connec- 
tion with this institution, and a Christian lady of education and cul- 
ture, in this country, longing to labor in the land of her fathers, has 
been appointed as first Principal. She will sail in a few months. 

In financial matters the Republic is hopeful. The public debt is 
not so large that it cannot, by the reforms now contemplated, be easily 
managed and placed under such control as to give no inconvenience 
to the State. There are evidences of an abundance of gold in the ter- 
ritory of the Republic. The precious metal is brought to the coast 
from various points in the interior. But the government is not anx- 
ious to encourage the opening of gold mines. We prefer the slow but 
sure, though less dazzling process of becoming a great nation by lapse 
of time, and by the steady growth of internal prosperity by agricul- 
ture, by trade, by proper domestic economy. 

In commercial matters there is also everything to encourage. Three 
lines of steamers from England and Germany, and sailing vessels from 
the United States visit the Liberian ports regularly for trading purposes. 
And the natural resources of the Republic have in various portions of 
it hardly yet been touched. Palm oil, cam-wood, ivory, rubber, gold- 
dust, hides, beeswax, gum copal, may be be produced in unlimited 

quantities. For the enterprising merchants of this country colored 

or white -there is no better field for the investment of pecuniar)' 
capital. 

The agriculture of the country is rapidly on the increase. Liberia 



*3 

has been supplying the coffee planters of Ceylon and Brazil with .1 new 
and superior kind of coffee for their agricultural industry. The Sibe- 
rian coffee is considered among the best in the world, and the people 
are now turning their attention largely to its cultivation. As immi- 
grants arrive from this country, extensive farms under their persever- 
ing industry are taking the place of the dense forests. The new settle- 
ments pushing out to the rich valleys and fertile slopes of the interior- 
are a marvel to those who a few years ago saw the country in its primi- 
tive condition ; and to the Negro newcomer from this Country in search 
of a field for his energy and enterprise, there is no picture which, for 
inspiration and grandeur, can ever equal the sight of these new pro- 
prietors of land and these new directors of labor engaged in their ab- 
sorbing and profitable pursuits. When he sees the thriving villages. 
the comfortable dwellings, the increasing agriculture, all supervised 
and controlled by men just like himself, who had only been more for- 
tunate in preceding him by a few years, a feeling of pride and ^ratiti- 
lication takes possession of him. Like Aeneas, when he witnessed the 
enterprise of the Tyrian colonists in the building of Carthage, he ex- 
claims 

*•'(' fortunati, quorum jam moenia surgunt." 

But, unlike the mythical author of that exclamation, he feels thai 
lie has a part in the rising fortunes of the settlements ; that what he 
beholds is not only what he himseli may accomplish, but is the prom- 
ise and pledge of the future greatness oi his ad< pted country. 

The nations of the earth are now looking to Liberia as one of the 
hopeful spots on that continent. The President of the United States 
in his last message, referred to the interest which this Government 
feels in that youngest sister of the great international family. 1'" a 
deputation from the Colonization Society, which called upon him a 

year ago. President Arthur said 1 hat he " had always taken great in- 
terest in the work of the Colonization Society, which was, in his 
judgment, eminently practical." 

President Gardner, who has for the last five years presided over 
that little nation, expresses tin- \ iews entertained b\ its mosl enlight- 
ened citizens as follows : 

"The ship of state which, in 1^47. we launi hed in fear and tremb- 
ling, is still afloat, witli timbers sound, and spars unhan ed. The 
Lone Star of Liberia untarnished is pushing it> was eastward, suc- 
cessfully achieving victories of peace even to the slopes of the Niger, 
gathering willing thousands under its elevating and hopeful folds. 
The American Colonization Society musi feel greatl) strengthen- 

* Aenead 1. 437. 



'4 

ed in its work. It has achieved what no other philanthropic agen- 
cy in modern times has accomplished, and what, perhaps, no nation 
could have effected, viz : the giving to the Negro an independent 
home in the land of his fathers, where he has unlimited scope for de- 
velopment and expansion. Had Liberia been the colony of a power- 
ful government, political and commercial jealousies, and the purposes 
of party spirit, might have prevented the surrender of the colony to 
the absolute control of the colonists. Hayti had to fight for her in- 
dependence. It is not practicable for Great Britain to give up Jamaica, 
or Barbadoes, or Sierra Leone, or Lagos. But the American Coloni- 
zation Society founded a nation, and continues to strengthen it. So 
God takes the weak things of the earth to confound the things that are 
mighty." 

In a letter dated at the Palace of Madrid, February 11, 1S82, 
King Alfonso XII, of Spain, writes to the President of Liberia as fol- 
lows : 
"Great and Good Friend, 

Desiring to give to you a public testimony of my Royal apprecia- 
tion and my particular esteem, I have had special pleasure in nomi- 
nating you Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel 
the Catholic. I am pleased by this action also to furnish new 
proof of the desire which animates me to strengthen more and more, 
the friendly relations which happily exist between Spain and the 
Republic of Liberia ; and with this motive I repeat to you the assur- 
ance of the affection which I entertain towards you, and with which 
I am, Great and Good Friend, 

Your (Ireat and Good Friend, 

Alfonso." 
Palace at Madrid, Febrtiary //, 1SS2. 

The Republic of Liberia now stands before the world— the realiza- 
tion of the dreams of the founders of the American Colonization So- 
1 iety, and in man] respects more than the realization. Its effect up- 
on that great < ountry is not to be estimated solely by the six hundred 
miles of coast which it has brought under civilized law. A sea of in- 
fluence has been 1 reated, to which rivulets and large streams air at- 
tracted from the distant interior; and up those streams, for a consid- 
erable distance, a tide of regeneration continually flows. Far beyond 
the range of the recognized limits of Liberia, hundreds of miles away 
from the coast, I have witnessed the effects of American civilization ; 
not only in the articles of American manufactures which I have been 
surprised to see in those remote districts, but in the intelligible use oi 
the English language, which 1 have encountered in the far inland re- 



i5 

gions, all going out from Liberia. None can calculate the wide-spread- 
ing results of a single channel *bf wholesome influence. Travellers 
in Syria tell us that Damascus owes its fertility and beauty to one 
single stream, the river Abana. Without that little river the charm 
and glory of Damascus would disappear. It would he a city in a desert- 
So the influence of Liberia, insignificant as it may seem, is the in- 
creasing source of beauty and fertility, of civilization and progress, to 
West and Central Africa. 

As time has gone on and the far reaching plans of the Society have 
been developed, its bitterest opponents among the whites have relax- 
ed their opposition. They see more and more that the idea which 
gave rise to it, had more than a temporal)- or pro\ isional importance ; 
that as long as there are Christian Negroes in this land who may do 
a civilizing work in Africa, and who desire- to go thither, so long will 
this colonization enterprise be a necessary and beneficent agency. 

Colored men of intelligence are also taking a more comprehensive 
view of the question. The colored people in various parts of the 
country are not only asserting their independence of party trammels 
but are taking higher ground with regard to their relations to Africa. 
The Colonization Society no longer stands between them and the 
land of their fathers as a dividing agency ; no longer the gulf that 
separates, but for many the bridge that connects. Liberia is producing 
the elements, which, if they do not to the minds of the thinking col- 
ored people, vindicate the methods of some colonizationists in days 
gone by, amply justify the policy of the Colonization Society. The 
leading men of color are recognizing the distinction between Liberia 
as an independent nation, claiming their respeel and support, and the 
Colonization Society, which, from their stand-p >int, contemplated their 
expatriation. 

Your speaker has had the honor of being listened to on the vari- 
ous occasions on which, recently, he has spoken in this city, 
houses composed of the most intelligent classes of the i olored popu- 
lation, who a few years ago would not have thought of attending any- 
meeting which had the remotest connection with Liberia. 
He has also had the gratifying privilege of being the guesl for 
several days at Uniontown of the leading colored man of the United 
States, better known than any other Negro in both hemispheres; and 
this address was written under his hospitable roof and, perhaps, on 
the same table on which, in years gone by, had been forged those 
thunderbolts which he hurled with so much power and effect against 
Colonization; but, tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in tilt's. The 
times are changed and we are changed with them. 



1 6 

The dawn of a new day in the history of the colored people is not 
only inspiring them with new views, out bringing forward new actors 
or leaders. It is not that those who are coming forward are superior 
to those who have passed away or are passing away. No ; the giants 
of former years— the Wards and Garnets and Douglasses— can never 
be surpassed or even reproduced. They were the peculiar product of 
their times. But it is. that the present times require different instru- 
ments, and leaders are arising with different purposes and different 
aspirations. I saw in large letters in a prominent part of Mr. Fred- 
erick Douglass's residence the scriptural injunction. " Live peaceably 
with all men ;" a fitting motto, I thought, for the soldier who, after the 
hard fought battle and the achievement of the victory, has laid down 
his arms. The motto in the days of Douglass's greatest activity was, 
" Fight the good fight." Now the days of peace have come. The 
statesman's office comes after the soldier's. Cedant artna togae. The 
Negro youth as a result of the training which he is now so generously 
receiving in the schools, will seek to construct States. He will aspire 
after feats of statesmanship, and Africa will be the field to which he will 
look for the realization of his desires. Bishop Turner, of the African M. 
E. Church, who enjoys exceptional opportunities for knowing the feel- 
ings of the colored people of this country, said in a newspaper article 
published a few days ago: 

" There never was a time when the colored people were more con- 
cerned about Africa in every respect, than at present. In some por- 
tions of the country it is the topic of conversation, and if a line of 
steamers were started from New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah or 
Charleston, they would be crowded to density every trip they made 
to Africa. There is a general unrest and a wholesale dissatisfaction 
among our people in a number of sections of the country to my cer- 
tain knowledge, and they sigh for conveniences to and from the Con- 
tinent of Africa. Something has to be done, matters cannot go on 
as at present, and the remedy is thought by tens of thousands to be 
a NEGRO NATIONALITY. This much the history of the world estab- 
lishes, that races either fossilized, oppressed or degraded, must emi- 
grate before any material change takes place in their civil, intellectual 
or moral status; otherwise extinction is ; the consequence." 

The general practice among superficial politicians and irresponsi- 
ble colored journalists in this country is to ignore and deprecate the 
craving for the fatherland among the Negro population. But noth- 
ing is clearer to those who know anything of race instincts and ten- 
dencies than that this craving is a permanent and irrepressible im- 

* Christian Recorder, Jan. 4 . 1883. 



17 

pulse. For some reason the American Government has never seen 
its way clear to give any practical recognition to these aspirations. 
In vain, apparently, does the Amerii olonization Society from 

year to year present the cries and petitions of thousands and hun- 
reds of thousands who yearn for a home in the land of their fathers. 
Individual philanthropists may admit that such cries deserve respect- 
ful sympathy, but the Government takes no note of them. It must 
be stated, howi that the Government is ever read) to extend as- 

sistance to Liberia, and on the iften urgi d in their 

diplomatic correspondence, that Liberia is to he the future home of 
thousand- of American citi/ens of African descent. 

Has nut the time now come when an earnest and united effort 
should be made by all sections of this great country to induce the 
Government to assisl the thousands who are longing to betake 
themselves to those vast and fertile regions td which they are directed 
by the strongest impulses that ha actuated the movements of 

humanity? While it is true that there ai oi dissatisfaction 

with his position in this country on the part of the Negro, still he 
will he carried to Africa by a higher impulse than that which brings 
millions to this country from Europe. Mr. Bright has said : "There 
are streams of emigration flowing towards America, and much of this 
arises from th< >ples and European gov- 

ernments," and he quotes from Mr. Bancroft the statement that "the 
history of the i tion of America is the history of the crimes of 

Europe." 

No natural impulses bring the European hither — artificial or exter- 
nal causes move him to emigrate. The Negro is drawn to Africa by 
the necessities of his nature. 

We do not ask that all the colored people should leave the United 
States and go to Africa. If such a result were possible it is not, 
fo* the present at least, desirable, certainly it is not indispensable. 
For the work to be accomplished much less than one-tenth of the six 
millions would he necessary. " In a return from exile, in the restora- 
tion of a people," says George Eliot, "the question is not whether cer- 
tain rich men will choose to remain behind, hut whether there will be 
found worthy men who will choose to lead the return. Plenty of 
prosperous Jews remained in Babylon when Ezra marshalled his band 
of forty thousand, and began a new glorious epoch in the history of 
his race, making the preparation for that epoch in the history of 
the world, wh ; been held ;,ough to be dated from for- 

evermore. 

There are Negroes enough in this country to join in the return — 



i8 

descendants of Africa enough, who arc faithful to the instincts of the 
race, and who realize their duty to their fatherland. I rejoice to 
know that here where the teachings of generations have been to dis- 
parage the race, there are many who arc faithful, then are men and 
women who will go, wli if homelessness which 

will never be appeased until they stand in the great land where their 
forefathers lived; until they catch glimpses of the old sun. and moon 
and stars, which still shine in their pristine brilliancy upon that vast 
domain ; until from the deck of the ship which bears them back home 
they see visions of the hills rising from the white margin'of the conti- 
nent, and listen to the breaking music of the waves — the exhilarating 
laughter of the sea as it dashes against the beach. These are the ele- 
ments of the great restoration. It may come in our own life time. 
Tt may be our happiness to see those rise up who will formulate pro- 
gress for Africa — embody the ideas which will reduce our social and 
political life to order; and we may. before we die, thank God that we 
have seen His salvation; that the Negro has grasped with a clear 
knowledge his meaning in the world's wast life — in politics 
science — in religion. 

I say it is gratifying to know that there are Negroes of this coup- 
try who will go tc> do this great work — cheerfully go and brave the 
hardships and perils n< i - to be endured in its accomplishment. 

These will be among the redeemers of Africa. If they suffer they 
will suffer devotedly, and if the)' die, they will die well. And what is 
death for the redemption of a people ? History is full of examph 
men who hav< elves for the advancement of a great 

cause for the good of their country. Every man who dies for 
Africa -if it is necessary to die — adds to Africa a new (dement of sal- 
vation, and hastens the day of her redemption. And when God lets 
men suffer and gives them to pain and death.it is not tin abandoned, 
it is not the worst or the guiltiest, but the best and the purest, whom 
He often chooses for His work, for the) will do it best. Spectat6rs 
weep and wonder; hut the sufferers themselves accept the pain in the 
joy of doing redemptive work, and rise out of lower levels to the ele- 
vated regions oi thos< nobler spirits — the glorious army of martyrs — 
who rejoice that tin • unted worthy to die for men. 

The nation now !.-■ frica by the returning exiles 

from this country will not be are] ion of this. 1 h .tion 

of the Negro to the land oi his fathers, will be the restoration 
of a race to its original integrity, to itself; king by itself, for 

itself and from itself, it will the methods of its own develop- 

ment, and they will not ; me as the Anglo-Saxon methods. 



*9 

In Africa there are no physical problems mfronted upon 

the solution of which human comfort and even human existence de- 
pend. In the temperate regions of the earth there are ever recurring 
problems, first physical or material, and then intellectual, which press 
for solution and cannot be deferred without peri!. 

It is this constant pressure which has developed the scientific in- 
tellect and the thoughtfulness of the European. Afi fiord to 
hand over the solution of these problems to th< driven b) the 
exigencies of their circumstances, must solve them or perish. And 
when they are solved we .-hah apply the results to our purposes, leav- 
ing us leisure and taste for the metaphysical and spiritual. Africa 
will i e largely an agricultural country. The people, when assisted by 
proper Impulse from without— and they need this help just as all other 
races have needed impulse from without-- will live largely in 
contact with nature. The Northern races will take the raw materials 
from Africa and bring them hack in such forms as shall contribute to 
the comfort and even elegance of life in that country; while the Afri- 
cvi, in the simplicity and purity of rural enterprises, will In- able to 
cultivate those spiritual elements in humanity which are suppressed, 
sili lit and inactive under the pressure and ; of m iterial prog- 
ress, lie will find out, not under pressure but in an entirely normal 
and natural way, what his work is to be. 

I do not anticipate for Africa an . id densel) crowded ci- 

ties. For my own taste I cannot say thai these agglomera- 

tions of humanity. For me man has marred the earth's surface b) his 
cities. "God made the country and man made the town." 

It is the cities which have furnished the deadli - niMib to 

prophets and reformers. Tl nurtured in 

the Nazareths and Bethlehei Id. 1 cherish the feeling 

that in Africa there will never be i Romeor Athensor 

London; but 1 ha\ Bethlchems and Naza- 

reths will spring up in vari< asp; nt. In the solitu 

of the African f< >resl >, where I he din i f we: tern civilizati< »n has never 
been heard. I have realized the el thai the "Groves 

were God's first temples." | :t that I stood in the presence of 

the Almight) ; and thi and the i sky and the air 

have whispered to me of, the great work yet to be achieved on that 
continent. I trod lightly through th"< I r 1 felt there was "a 

spirit in the woods." And [ could understand hovy it came to pass 
that the prophets of; m ■ rs who have organized 

states and elevated peopl on mountains, 

in caves, in grottoes i could undei mething of the power 



20 

which wrought upon Sakya ; er the trees of India, upon X*u- 

ma Pompilius in the retreat of th n Mohami 

in the silent cave: upon Martin Li and Ignatius Loyola in 

the cloisters. One of the sweetest of American poets— Whittier- in 
his poem on the Quaker Meeting, pictures the beauty and instructive 
power of unbroken stillness — 

"And so I find it well to come 
For deeper rest to this still room, 
For here the habit of the soul 
Feels less the outer world's control 

" And from the silence multiplied 

By these still'forms on either side. 

The world that time and sense have known 

Falls off and leaves us God alone, 

" So to the calmly gathered thought 
The innermost of truth is taught, 
The mystery, dimly' underst" 
That love of God is love of good." 

It is under such circumstances that the African will gather inspira- 
tion for his work. He will grow freely, naturally, unfolding his pow- 
ers in a completely health)- progress. 

Tin- world needs such a development of 
soil. He will bring as Ids contribution the softi na- 

ture. The harsh and ster-n fibre of th teeds this 

milder element. The African is the feminine; and we must not suppose 
that this is of least importance in the ultimate develi ipment of humani- 
ty. "We are apt," says Matthew Arnold, "to account amiability weak and 
hardness strong," but even if it were so, then GeorgeSands 

; truly and beautifully, " there are forcesof weak 
attractiveness or of suavity, which are quite as real as the forces of vig- 
or, < if encri iai hment, of \-j; J , Jil v." :: 

I see thai Michelet claims for France this feminine chai 
mong the nations. Speaking of Jeanne d' Arc, lie says: "It was lit 
that the France should be a woman. France herself is a 

man. She has the fii kleness of the sex but also its amiable gentleness 
its faci .it\', and the excellence of its first impulses." 

The beau n in is not in cowardly yielding or careless servil- 

ity, An English poet has embodied in a few striking and beautiful 
lines, a description of woman's sphere and power; 



♦Nineteenth Century, June 



'• I =mv her upon nearer •:<-■-. 

A spirit, ;. 

Her household motions light and free, 

And steps of virgin liberty: 

A countenance in which did meet 

Sweet records, promises as sweet; 

A perfect woman nobly planned 

To warn, to comfort, to command. 

And yet a spirit still, and bright 

something of an angel light " 

Such will be the African's place when he rises to the proper sphere 
of his work. France does not occupy that place. That nation may 
at times wear woman's dress, and go about with light and sportive air, 
but beneath those charming habiliments beats the same stern and 
masculine heart that we discern in other European races. 

It was a proof of the great confidence felt by Mrs. Stowe in the 
idea of African Colonization -in the might) results to be achieved 
through its means for Africa and forhumanit) that she sends two oi 
the most striking characters in Uncle Tom's Cabin to Africa; one, the 
bright, the enlightened, the cultivated George Harris, goes to Liberia. 
And never were more forcible for the emigration of per- 

sons of color from this country ■.<> that Republic than are presented 
in the able and eloquent letter which she makes him write to set 
forth his reasons for emigrating, Mis arguments are pathetic ani 
answerable. 

George Harris's letter at least shows what a cultivated Anglo- 
Saxon and an abolitionist feels ought to be the \ iews of an educated 
and cultivated colored American ; ami i, hint to those colored 

writers and speakers who amuse themselves with agitating questions 
of amalgamation. 

Mrs. Stowe speaks of Liberia as " the refuge which the providence 
of God has provided in Africa." But she does not approve an indis- 
criminate emigration to Africa, in arguing against it she says 
wisely, 

" To fill up Liberia with an ignorant, inexperienced, half-barbar- 
ized race, just escaped from the chains of slavery, would be only to 
prolong, for ages, the period of struggle and conflict which attend 
the inception of new enterpri Let the church of the north re- 

ceive these poor sufferers in the spirit of Christ ; receive them to the 
educating advantages of Christian republican and schools, un- 

til they have attained to somewhat of a moral and intellectual matur- 
ity, and then assist them in their passage to those shores, where they 
may put in practice the lessons they have learned in America." 



Mrs. Stowe's idea does not seem to be that after they have risen 
to a certain stage of progress they should be absorbed into the great 
American nation. Her plan is exactly that of the American Coloniza- 
tion Society — to " assist them in their passage to those shores, where 
they may put in practice the lessons they have learned in America." 
The attention of those who look to an ultimate American destiny for 
the American Negro should be called to these utterances of an ac- 
knowledged friend and able defender of the race. Mrs. Stowe's won- 
derful novel was not only the harbinger of emancipation, but the har- 
binger also of the vast colonization which will sooner or later take 
place. And that friends of the African should have seized upon her 
words in the one capacity and not in the other, can only be explained 
by the fact that as an angel of Abolition the nation was ready for her ; 
but to receive her as an angel of Colonization, it is only now in the 
process of preparation. 

Soon after the close of the war it was the favorite cry of some that 
the Colonization Society had done its work and should be dropped. 
But that cry has been effectually hushed by the increasing light of 
experience, and under the louder cries of the thousands and tens of 
thousands, who in various parts of the country are asking for aid to 
reach the land of their fathers. Both white and colored are now re- 
cognizing the fact that the Society with its abundant knowledge, with 
its organized plans, is an indispensable machinery for the diffusion of 
that special information about Africa of which the American people 
are so generally destitute, and for the inoffensive creation among the 
Negro portion of the population of those enlightened opinions about 
the land of their fathers, and their duty to that land which will lead 
some at least of the anxious thousands to enter upon it with intelli- 
gence and efficiency. 

There is evidently, at this moment, no philanthropic institution 
before the American public that has more just and reasonable claims 
upon private and official benevolence than the American Coloniza- 
tion Society. And the Christian sentiment of the country, as I gather 
it from the east and from the west, from the north and from thesoutlv 
is largely in favor of giving substantial and generous aid to thai 
struggling Christian Republic in West Africa, the power of which, it 
isconceded.it should be the pride of this nation, as it is its com- 
mercial interest, to increase and perpetuate. 






r iu 



IU 



ANS: 



THE ANNUAL DISCOURSE. 



DELIVERS! ' A I I III- 



SIXTY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



IIM.ll J\ 



FOUNDRY METHODIST E. CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Sunday. January 13, 1884. 



REV. OTIS H. TIFFANY, D. D. 



Liahecl by Request of the Sc 



WASHING I ON CI I Y : 

Coi.onizai i n Bun ding, 450 Pj nnsylvania Avenue, 

1884. 



L ETTERS 



Colon izatii m Room s . 

Washing/on, D. C, January. 17, 1884. 
Dear Sir: 

At ///<■ Annual Meeting of the American Colonization Society 
held on the ijth inst.phe following resolution was unanimously 
adopted: — 

" Resolved: That the sincere thanks of the Society be tendered to the Rev m 
Otis H. Tiffany, D. D.,for his aide, eloquent and appropri- 
ate Discourse delivered at our Sixty-Seventh Anniversary, and 
that a copy of it be requested for publication." 
Cordially uniting in the Society 's expression of gratitude and 
appreciation, and looking for an early compliance with its request, 
believe me. 

Truly, and with great respect and esteem, 

) 'our obedient servant, 
I I'M. COPPINGER, Secretary . 

Hev. Otis H. Tiffany, D. D., 
Xew York. 



New York, January 21, 1SS4. 
Dear Sir: 

I am in receipt of your favor of lyth inst., announcing the ac- 
tion of the Society at its Annual Meeting and requesting a copy of 
the Add/ess delivered at the 6jtli Anniversary. 

I highly appreciate the compliment thus paid me, but reluctantly 
yield to the request to print because my effort was but very little more 
than a gathering of materials for information from others and had 
so little of original suggestion. If, however^ it may be thus accepted, 
it is at your service. 

J 'cry respectfully, 

O. H. TIFFANY. 
Mr. William Coppinger, 

Sec: Am ; Colonization Society, 
Washington, D. C. 



Africa for Africa 



NS 



DISCOURSE 



Mr. President :— 

My earliest recollections are connected with the American Colo- 
nization Society. I remember, with interest, that when a mere 
child, there came to our home in Baltimore, as a present from a 
Western merchant, a slave boy. My father's conscientious convic- 
tions would not permit him to own a slave ; the peculiarities of the 
boy made it undesirable that he should be a citizen at large; and, 
consequently, he became one of the first who went out to the Liberia 
Colony. Occasional reports from him, and visits from those who 
voyaged between this country and Liberia, kept the Society in constant 
recollection, and have largely been the occasion of the personal inter- 
est I have taken in its history and success. These things happened 
about the time when the Colonization Society was being assailed and 
denounced by those who were termed '" Abolitionists" in this country. 
And though it was constantly asserted ; " The Colonization Society is 
not a Missionary Society, nor a Society for the suppression of the slave 
trade, nora Society forthe improvement of the blacks, nor a Society for 
the abolition of slavery : it is simply a Society for the establishment 
of a colony on the coast of Africa," yet it attracted to itself the 
scorn and invective of many who were engaged in the anti- slavery 
reformation. According to his biographer, it was about this period 
that Mr. Garrison returned to this country from England, bringing 
with him a protest against the colonization scheme, signed by such 
men as Wilberforce, Macaulay, Buxton, and O'Connell. In the 
days of which I am speaking, the Colonization Society was complete- 
ly misunderstood both in its attitude and its aims — so completely 
that many persons could rejoice in hearing of the prayer of " Father 
Snowdon," as he was called, a Negro preacher of Boston, who, in his 
fervent and earnest utterances, prayed : " Oh God, we pray Thee that 
that seven-headed and ten-horned monster, the Colonization Society, 
may be smitten through and through with the fiery darts of truth, 
and tormented as the whale between the sword fish and the thrasher." 

Originating in a most benevolent purpose, the Society has done 
great good in its long period of service. For sixty-three years it has 



given continuous aid to the emigration of persons of the colored race 
to Africa, the whole number thus going to Liberia being 15,655. Be- 
sides this, 5,722 recaptured Africans were, through the efforts of the 
Society, enabled to settle in Liberia, making 21,377 persons to whom 
the Society has afforded homes in Africa. One hundred and seventy- 
eight voyages of emigrants have been made without wreck or loss of 
life, and the movement iscontinuous, notwithstandingthe bettered con- 
dition of the colored people in this country as the result of the acts 
of emancipation, Liberia, indeed, is now more promising and pros- 
perous than it ever has been. The general advance in the condition 
of the population has been notable and marked. President Gardner, 
in his last Annual Message, said : " We have been blessed, 
during the year, with health throughout our communities, and the 
earth has yielded more than her usual supplies. The rice crop has 
been Abundant, and the coffee trees have also afforded an unusual 
yield. There has been a manifest improvement in our relations with 
the Aborigines. Roads long closed have been opened. The na- 
tive wars which have been going on in the vicinity of Cape Mount 
have nearly ceased. These piratical wars are for the most part the 
result of long-standing feuds arising from the horrible slave trade, 
and they will be effectually suppressed by the progress of civilization, 
and the increase of wealth among the people. Friendly communications 
continue between this country and Ibrahimi Sissi, King of Medina, 
who has been assiduous in his efforts to open the road for trade." 

So that the Republic of Liberia stands before the world an em- 
bodiment and realization of the dieams of its founders. 

Very early in the history of this country, the condition of the 
free blacks awakened anxiety and caused discussion as to measures 
of safety and relief. The earliest movement of which I have knowl- 

e was made- in 1777, by a discussion in the Legislature of the State 
of Virginia. Subsequently, when Mr. Monroe was Governor of that 
State, he was instructed to enter into correspondence with President 
Jefferson upon the means of procuring an asylum for the free blacks- 
beyond the limits of the United States. President Jefferson, approv- 
ing the suggestion, instructed Mr. King, then representing this Gov- 
ernment in Great Britain, to attempt a negotiation with a company 
which had effected a settlement in Sierra Leone; but the effort was 
without practical results. Subsequently a proposition was made to 

ire from the Portuguese a location in South America. The Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia in 1816 embodied the facts of their pre- 
vious efforts and their judgn) • 11 1 of what ought to be the future effort 
in this di ection, in a preamble and resolution, setting forth the fact 
that the efforts hitherto made had been frustrated, and that a loca- 



tion ought to be obtained "upon the coast of Africa, or upon the 
shore of the North Pacific, or at some other place not within any of 
the United States, or under the control of the Government of the United 
States, to serve as an asylum for such persons of color as now are 
free and may desire the same, and for those who may hereafter be 
emancipated within the limits of this Commonwealth." In 1825, Mr- 
Tucker, a Senator from Virginia, offered in the United States Sen- 
ate a resolution, the object of which was to ascertain through the 
War Department the probable expense of extinguishing the Indian 
title " to a portion of the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains 
that may be suitable for colonizing the free people of color." It will 
thus appear that the State of Virginia was the first to move in the 
direction of the work which the Society has been accomplishing. 
Two years after Virginia, action was taken by the States of Maryland 
and Tennessee; in 1824 formal action was taken by the States of Ohio 
and Connecticut, in 1827 by the State of Kentucky, and subsequently 
thereto by almost all the States. In place of the results thus antici- 
pated and desired, and expected to be reached by the action of Gov- 
ernment, the Republic of Liberia was founded by Negroes from the 
United States without government aid or authority. The eighty- 
eight persons who sailed from New York in 1820, and who landed 
first at the British colony of Sierra Leone, dissatisfied with till- 
ing there, sailed South until they succeeded in getting a foothold 
260 miles southeast of Sierra Leone, and there acquired territory by 
treaty and by purchase. 

Up to 1847, the American Colonization Society fostered them. 
and appointed their Governors. In that year they declared them- 
selves free and independent. Great Britain was the first to acknowl- 
edge them, and she was soon followed by the other European Pow- 
ers. Our Government did not recognize the independence of Liberia 
until 1862, though for many years previously a commercial agency 
had been established there. By such slow and halting steps have we 
advanced in the payment of our indebtedness to a land that in all 
periods of history has attracted the attention of the world. 

From the earliest times there has been a fascination in its story- 
Its mysterious river, mysterious both in its source and its ovi 
has associations which carry us to the beginnings of all human histo- 
ry. On its banks, in the sepulchres of forgotten king's, stand the 
proudest monuments of human vanity. There thesphynx. "grand in 
loneliness, imposing in magnitude, impressive in the mystery that 
hangs over its story," still sits gazing over and beyond the present 
far into the past, sole remnant of empires whose creation and de- 
struction it has witnessed, of nations whose birth, progress and decay 



it has noticed in five thousand slow revolving years. This interest 
continues all through the period of the Israelitish captivity down to 
the time when hungry nations were fed by its harvests, and its fields 
were the graneries of Ancient Rome. These waters have flashed 
with light under the oars of the galleys of Sesostris, and reflected a 
marvelous beauty from the barges of Cleopatra. The effort to trace 
their sources has brought Egypt on the North into commeicial rela- 
tions with the dwellers in the centre of the great Continent, and thus 
those we have deemed so different a people have their links binding 
them to the dwellers in the interior, and there mingles with our feel- 
ing of veneration a sense of indebtedness well expressed by Sir Henry 
Rawlinson, who says: " For the last three thousand years the world 
has been mainly indebted for its advancement to the Semitic and 
Indo-European races; but it was otherwise in the first ages. Egypt 
and Babylon, Menes and Nimrod— both descendants of Ham — led the 
way and acted as pioneers of mankind, in treading the fields of art, 
literature and science. Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history, chrono- 
logy, architecture, plastic art, sculpture, navigation, crockery: textile in- 
dustries, seem, all of them, to have had their origin in one or other of 
these countries. The beginnings may have been humble enough. We 
may laugh at the rude picture writing, the uncouth brick pyramid, the 
coarse fabric, the homely and illshapen instruments, as they present 
themselves to our notice in the remains of these ancient nations; 
but they are really worthier of our admiration than our ridicule. 
The inventors of any art are among the greatest benefactors of their 
race, and mankind at the present day lies under infinite obligations 
to the genius of these early ages." 

We know well that "there was a time when the whole of 
the northern belt of Africa was bright with Christian light; when 
Cyprian and Augustine knelt and prayed and wept and suffered and 
ruled in the Churches there. There was a time, when with the Church's 
rule, temporal prosperity abounded ; when that part of North Africa 
almost rivalled Italy in being the great granery and store-house of the 
world ; when its rich fields, its abundant pastures, its beautiful woods, 
furnished the mistress of the world all that she needed for her pomp 

and luxury." 

n Central Africa boasted of its antiquity, and if the legends 
tell the truth, when •'Orpheus was charming the forests into life, and 
Hesiod was tracing the genealogies of the gods, and weaving nature 
and time into son-, and Homer was singing the wars of the Greeks, 
and the wanderings of Ulysses, then the bards of Nigretia were celebrat- 
ing the exploits of their heroes and publishing the records of their 
renown in the ears of listening kings and admiring nations." 



Africa is to-day the object of more interest on the part of a larger 
number of people than any other quarter of the globe. England, 
France, Portugal, Germany and Italy are attempting to obtain titles 
to the country. England has made annexation of the coast lying ad- 
jacent to her colony of Sierra Leone; France is forcing her way on 
the Senegal and toward the head-waters of the Niger : she thieatens 
to annex the coast from the Gaboon to the Congo, some 250 
miles, and is running her lines on the Upper Congo. Her Chamber 
of Deputies has granted the De Brazza Mission, by a vote of 449 to 3, 
a credit of a million and a quarter of francs. The Portuguese Gov- 
ernment has appointed explorers and examined the Congo country, 
and assumes to exercise control over all the territory at the mouth of 
the Congo. The German Reichstag has increased its annual appro- 
priation for the exploration of Africa. Italy has despatched a party 
to Abyssinia for geographical and mercantile purposes. She has also 
concluded treaties which promise to make Assab a centre of com- 
merce. The Sultan of Morocco has authorized Spain to take possess- 
ion of Santa Cruz del Mar, and the Sultan of Zanzibar has purchased 
six superior steamers to constitute a regular coast service, in the in- 
terest of commerce and for the suppression of the slave trade. The 
International African Association, which owes its origin to the phi- 
lanthropic initiative of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, has received 
large subscriptions and pushed forward exploring expeditions to start 
and equip the line of hospitable and scientific stations which are to 
bound the East and West coast, and form a civilizing girdle around 
Central Africa. And the results following the explorations of Living- 
stone and Stanley and De Brazza are attracting the attention of the 
civilized world. What was a " Dark Continent," by the indomitable 
energy of these explorers seems likely to prove the richest quarter of 
the globe. Not only does the land produce, with slight persuasion 
of tillage, admirable crops of cotton and coffee, but the soil is rich in 
diamonds on its southern coast, and in iron on its northern. Cap- 
tain Burton has asserted that he knows nothing to equal »the pro- 
digeous wealth of the land, even in California, or in the Brazils. 
"Gold dust is panned by native women from the sands ot the sea 
shore. Gold spangles glitter after showers in the streets of Axim- 
Gold is yielded by the lumps of yellow swish that rivet the wattel walls 
of hut and hovel." 

The capitalists of the world are alive to its wonderous possibili- 
ties. The President of the United States, rightly estimating the 
magnitude of the political and commercial questions centering about 
the Congo, said in his recent mssage : " The rich and populous valley 
of the Congo is being opened to commerce by the Society called 



* The International African Association,' of which the King of the 
Belgians is the President, and a citizen of the United States the chief 
executive officer. Large tracts of territory have been ceded to the 
Society by the native chiefs, roads have been opened, steamboats 
placed on the river, and the nucleus of States established at twenty-two 
stations, under one flag. The objects of the Society are philanthropic. 
It does not aim at permanent political control, but seeks the neutrality 
of the valley. The United States cannot be indifferent to this work or 
to the inter ests of their citizens involved in it. It may become advisable 
for us to co-operate with other commercial powers in promoting the 
rights of trade and residence in the Congo Valley free from the 
interference or political control of any nation." 

While these topics are all of general interest, the maintenance and 
development and strengthening of the State of Liberia, which came 
into existence under the fostering care of this Society, demands our 
special attention ; and it becomes us to ascertain, if it be possible, by 
what process the Liberian Republic can be made sure and its influ- 
ence widened, so that not only its present inhabitants may remain in 
safety with the opportunities of advanring commerce and increasing 
civilization, but may continuously in all the future, furnish an asylum 
for the oppressed and a home for the exile. She has now reached a 
period in her history when she seems able to bear and sorely to need 
an influx of enlightened descendants of African parentage from the 
land of their exile. An important addition to the population is de- 
manded, if she is to extend her influence and push her free institu- 
tions and hold her own against the encroachments of foreigners. 
The natives in the interior seem to be anxious for the planting of 
civilized settlements on their hills and in their valleys. Their charac- 
teristics seem to have been misunderstood. Stanley, in a private let- 
ter written in July of last year, goes on to say that those whom, in his 
book "Across the Oark Continent" he called the "infuriates of 
Arebu " appealed to him to stop an internecine war, submitted to his 
arbitration, and paid the tine lie imposed. 

These facts and others to which attention has been called, give to 
the suggestions of President Gardner, in his last Message to the Sen- 
ate and House of Representatives of Liberia, an increased weight and 
importance. I le says : 

"The importance of increasing our friendly intercourse with the 
powerful tribes of the country is a matter that cannot claim too much 
of our attention. So important do I regard our relation to these our 
brethren, and so desirous am I of seeing this vast aboriginal popula- 
tion share with us the rights, the privileges, and the joys of civiliza- 



tion and a Christian government, thus giving permanency to the 
republican institutions on our coast, that I consider it really the great- 
est work of Liberia at present to pursue such a policy as will cement 
into one mass the many tribes about us, and bring them under the 
moulding influence of our laws and religion." 

In this suggestion there is practical wisdom, and it seems to me 
that the permanency and quiet of Liberia depend upon wisely adopt- 
ing such a policy. The late Lord Bishop of London, in speaking, in 
1858, of the disasters which overtook the Christian Church in North- 
ern Africa, attributes them to the fact that that Northern belt of 
Africa was content to be a belt. " She thought that the light of the 
Gospel had been given to her for herself instead of for others; she 
did not understand the great benefit which would come back to her 
as the inevitable reaction of aggressive movement. She stood on the 
border of the desert and made no sign to the heathen around her, 
and did not try to gather them in. She was content to be an Italian 
offshoot, instead of striving to become a living branch. Making no 
effort there was no reaction, no growth, no development. A wall of 
darkness hid the light of Christian truth ; a wall of barbarism lay be- 
yond the district of civilization, which Christianity had so abundantly 
watered. The earthquake began to heave the land ; there was dark- 
ness overhead ; there were rumblings beneath ; the people were terri- 
fied, but did not heed the lesson. They went on in their dream of 
having a church for themselves, and their religion for themselves' 
never seeing or knowing that they were to receive by imparting, and 
to grow bv the reaction of their own activities. The danger thick- 
ened, the day darkened, and so when the Mohammedans swept 
as God's avengers over the land, this neglect became the instrument 
of vengeance. They had no one to fall back on ; there was no gather- 
ing of nations or 01 tribes, who, converted by their teachings, might 
have checked the Mohammedan invasion. The wave of invasion 
rolled on ; church after church was uprooted, city after city was de- 
stroyed, until the light of the Cross was hid, and the Crescent alone 
was triumphant. The failure to develop strength became weakness ;' 
the attempt to confine the light occasioned darkness, and so great 
has been the darkness, that for centuries they have had no Christianity 
except as it has been carried to them by the missionary zeal of others." 

If Liberia is to maintain the foothold she has gained, and to de- 
velop into a commercial State, it must be more than a mere strip of 
sea-border. It must send back its arms of influence, and its reaches 
of authority toward the interior, where, by mingling with the native 
tribes and exhibiting to them the superiority of Christian civilization. 



they may be attached as friends and be connected as allies; and thus 
the movement for a State may become the occasion for a religion, 
and commerce and friendly intercourse, which are essential for pro- 
tection, may open the way for the enlargement of religious principles, 
and the development of eternal hopes. 

An officer of this Society, in a recent publication, has announced 
Africa to be a virgin market, saying "that religion and philanthropy 
have something to do with the interest that the European world has 
of late years taken in the exploration of Africa, is unquestionable. 
That Continent may now be regarded as the only virgin market of 
any extent remaining for the rapidly increasing surplus everywhere 
of manufacturing industry. If the United States do not at present 
feel the want of such a market as much as other nations, the time will 
come when they will no longer have the advantage of England and 
France and Germany in this respect; and they should not forget that 
they have a foothold in Africa which no other nation enjoys. From 
the mouth of the Mediterranean southward to the English settlement 
at the Cape of Good Hope, there is no one spot that offers greater 
facilities for introducing trade and commerce into the interior of the 
Continent than Liberia. Slowly, but steadily and surely, a nation is 
growing up there, whose sympathies, if we retain them, will give 
us practically the benefit of a colony, without the responsibilities of a 
colonial system — a nation that at the end of 63 years is further ad- 
vanced than were many, if not all the colonies of America, after the 
same lapse of time. Surely such a nation is not to be regarded with 
indifference, but may be considered as no unimportant factor in the 
commercial and manufacturing future of the United States, to say 
nothing of its peculiar fitness for conferring upon Africa the benefits 
of Christian civilization." 

Professor Blyden, the able President of the College of Liberia, 
said, in his Address lastiyear, "People who talk of the civilizing in- 
fluence of mere trade on that Continent, do so because they are unac- 
quainted with the facts ; nor can missionaries alone do the work. 
We do not object to trade, and we would give every possible encour- 
agement to the noble efforts of the missionaries. We would open 
the country everywhere to commercial intercourse; we would give 
everywhere hospitable access to traders Place your trade factories 
at every prominent point along the coast, and even let them be 
planted on the banks of the rivers ; let them draw the rich products 
from remote districts. We would say also, send the missionary to 
every tribe and every village; multiply throughout the country the 
evangelizing agencies ; line the banks of the rivers with preachers of 



righteousness— penetrate the jungles with those holy pioneers— crown 
the mountain tops with your churches, and fill the valleys with your 
schools. No single agency is sufficient to cope with the multifarious 
needs of the mighty work. But the indispensable agency ts the colony. 
Groups of Christian and civilized settlements must in every instance 
bring up the rear if the results of that work are to be widespread, 
beneficial and enduiing." 

It is depressing to have to feel that notwithstanding all that has 
been done by missionary effort, but limited success has attended 
Christian endeavor. Bishop Nicholson has asserted : "That the Ro- 
man Catholic Missionaries tried it for 214 years, and have not left a 
vest age of their influence behind; that the Moravians, beginning in 
1736, tried it for 34 years, making five attempts, at a cost of 1 1 lives. 
and did nothing: Englishmen tried it in 1792. with a loss of a hundred 
lives in two vears ; the London, Edinboro' and Glasgow Societies 
tried it in 1797, but their stations were extinguished in three years, 
and five or six missionaries died. Many other missionary attempts 
were made before the settlement of Liberia, all of which failed. Sev- 
eral Protestant missions tnere have done a good work, but it has been 
at a cost of many lives. White men cannot live and labor there." 

And yet in many parts of the country there have been par.ial 
successes. The mixed and difficult problems which have embarrassed 
the missionary work in the interior lake country have been apparently 
solved. The successes have been purchased, however, at a sai 
of health and life, as well as by the endurance of toil and pri . 
Sixteen years aj;o heathenism and barbarism prevailed in the Niger 
Mission, where now 4,000 are under Christian instruction, and where 
a king has ordered his people to observe the Sabbath. Steamers 
have been built in Europe for the express purpose of carrying th< 
tidings, and are now sailing on he rivers Niger, Congo and Za 
and lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. American missions 1 ave been 
planted and earnestly prosecuted by the American Board, by the 
Presbyterian Board, and by the Protestant Episcopal Board, as well 
as by the Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church. A Methodist 
Church was formed on board ship in the first companj ol Liberian 
emigrants who sailed in 1S20, of which David Coker was pastor. 
In 1824 the Missionary Board propose'! to send a white missionary 
when a suitable person should be found. In 1X32 Melville B. 
Cox was appointed to the work. He was filled with missionary 
zeal. He said, "It is the height of my ambition and h 
vision of my life to lay my bones in the soil of Africa. If I can 
only do this, I will establish a connection between Africa and the 
Church at home that shall never be broken till Africa is redeemed." 
Arriving at Monrovia March. 1833, he entered vigorously upon his 



work in regulating the existing Methodist Church according to the 
Discipline, in establishing Sunday-schools, and planning additional 
mission stations. He perished of the fever July 21st, of the same year. 
Twenty lie beside him in the little missionary burying ground at 
Monrovia. Since then others have been sent out, and two Episcopal 
visits of supervision have been made. Bishop Scott going in 1853, 
and Bishop Gilbert Haven in 1876. Good has no doubt been accom- 
plished, but the work has grown slowly. Many heroic lives have 
been sicrificed, and much money has been expended in it, and the re- 
sults are not encouraging.— {Miss. Report, M. E. C/i.) 

The Missionary Bishop of Cape Paimas, writes: " Four out 
of seven of the white missionaries in this jurisdiction will return 
to America for their health this year. Whi'e men must grow 
fewer and fewer in proportion to the workers from among the Ne- 
gro brethren, until the whole shall be turned over to the people 
whose home is here." " We cannot count, on more than three years in 
the field of every four of the white missionary's term of service, and of 
these three years there are large deductions to be made of the time 
one is sick here." 

The difficulty largely lies in the fact of the unhealthfulness of the 
climate. The excessive luxury of the vegetation along the river 
banks raises them above their proper level, and cuts of drainage from 
the plains; and this must probably always be, necessarily preventing 
the doin« of this work by white men. But it is a work that must be 
done. The Spring Hill Baptist Association of Alabama, {colored,") 
has said, "To remain dormant and leave it for God to use other means 
and others as agents in the evangelization of Africa is to be in every 
manner possible criminal, and wholly recreant to the most sacred 
trust committed to our car<- " Also, the same Association calls 
attention to the fact that God always redeems a people by mem- 
bers of the people to be redeemed. When He would emancipate the 
|ews, Moses is selected; and all through history this truth stands out 
most prominently. Ethiopia will never stretch out ner hands to God 
until Ethiopians shall have been used as agents. "Africa is to be re- 
deemed through the instrumentality of Africans " 

Rev. Dr. Henry M. Turner, of the African Methodist Hpiscopal 
Church, says, through the Christian Recorder: 

" There never was a time when the colored people were more con- 
cerned about Africa in every respect than at the present time. In all 
portions of the country it is the topic of conversation;" and he be- 
lieves "that if a line of steamers were started from Xew Orleans. Sa- 
vannah, or Charleston, they would be crowded to density every trip 
they made to Africa. There is a general unrest and a wholesome 
dissatisfaction among our people, in a broad section of the land, to 



13 

my certain knowledge, and they sigh for conveyances to and from the 
Continent of Africa. Something has to be done." And this feeling 
seems to attach itself to the American character. The yearning for 
home would seem to have outlasted all the years of exile, and the ex- 
actions of bondage. For if Bishop Turner is not mistaken, the same 
traits are exhibited now and here as were observed by Mungo Park 
in his early visits. "The poor Negro," he says, "feels the desire in 
its full force. No water is sweet to him but what is drawn from his 
own well, and no tree has so cool and pleasant a shade as the Tabba 
tree of his own hamlet. When war compels him to leave the delight- 
ful spot where he first drew breath, and seek safety in some other 
country, the time is spent in talking of the land of his ancestors, and 
no sooner is peace restored than he turns his back on the strangers,, 
and hastens to rebuild his fallen walls, and exults to see the smoke 
arising from his native village." 

It may be that even the harsh rigors of slavery and the effects of 
a protracted bondage have not obliterated from the minds of the de- 
scendants of Africans the feelings which were instinct in their fa- 
thers ; and if, having acquired freedom, they shall use that freedom 
in acquiring citizenship in the land of their fathers, the skies will smile 
above them more sweetly there than they can here, and the soil of 
Africa shall be to them a sacred soil. There they may lay the founda- 
tion of an empire in silence and in peace, and in far distant ages it 
may stand amid the gloom of tnat now desolate Continent a lighthouse 
of cheer and beneficence, a monument of praise immortal and beauti- 
ful as the stars. 

If the Republic can be strengthened by reciprocated fraternity 
with the tribes and nations that are about it, and if it be maintained 
in purity and in enlightenment by Christian doctrine and by Christian 
sentiment, it maybe in all the future an asylum where he who has 
wandered and wept from his childhood may again exult in the smoke 
of his village ; and again — 

'• Shall drink at noon 

The palm's rich nectar, and lie down at eve 

In the green pastures of remembered days, 

And wake to wander and to weep 00 more 

On Congo's mountain coast, or Gambia's golden 
It seems to me that we are called t<> renewed activity by these 
considerations. We may not labor there, but here we are required to 
toil. The fashioning of the blocks and beams at a distance permitted 
of old the erection of the temple at Jerusalem without noisei ir hammer. 
May we not here prepare the timber of African liberty? White men must 
be excluded from the mission field, and also very largely from com- 
mercial activity. But the character of the work, the overabundant 
resources, the remunerative gains will attract the world. Why shall 



14 

not men of color step in and reap all these advantages? Why should 
not a people, generous and just, who have heretofore profited by the 
unrequited toil of enforced bondage, provide the opportunity andthe 
means for their so doing ? I know that colored men have a perfect 
right to dwell here ; I know that freedom has been won for them and 
citizenship granted them. It maybe that " all the wealth pded by 
the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil" was 
not too large a price to pay for it. I honor and respect the pluck and 
determination which causes many of them to resolve "to fight it out 
on the line" of "social recognition;" but I also know the strength 
and endurance of caste ideas and prejudices. I know that genera- 
tions must pass away ere ever this (call it prejudice, call it folly, call 
it sin, if you please) can be done away. It appears where you would 
least expect it, It has power even over those who pray against it. It 
will continue even to the distant future a blight and a curse. Over 
against this it seems to me stands a continent where all possibilities 
are open, and where no social ostracism can come; a land of freedom 
and of recognized independence; a land so situate that it maybe- 
come a highway to the riches and stored wealth of a hitherto un- 
known continent; a land in which the sad experiences of former dis- 
abilities shall be teachers of wisdom, where the lessons of a civiliza- 
tion they have largely promoted shall be helpers in producing more 
honorable results, and in more equally distributing them ; and where 
there shall be full opportuuity of demonstrating all the hopes that 
they have cherished, and achieving a high destiny, Africa for Afri- 
cans, but not the "dark continent" from which their fathers wen 
stolen, but Africa explored by Christian zeal, laid open by human en- 
deavor, and a field for the competition of the nations ; the spires 
of Christian churches rising among its palms and banyans, the beaten 
play ground of village schools upon its shores. Here are the possi- 
bilities of realizing a grand future— a period when the jungle and the 
desert shall blossom with a richer and brighter garniture of beauty 
than has ever yet greeted her radiant skies ; when influences mightier 
than armies shall conquer her barbarism, and the miserable Caffirs 
and the reeking Hottentots shall be regenerated and disenthralled, 
and the wild Arab scouring the illimitable desert shall not be able to 
outstrip the rattling engine and the rumbling car of commerce, when 
the oldest and darkest of the continents shall last of all see the great 
light; the Sphynx interpret the mystery of the civilizations, and the 
Nil** and the Congo, as they pour out their mighty currents into the 
oceans, shall be highways for Christian commerce under the direction 
of the sors of those who once were slaves, but who shall be in full 
possession of the lands, reigning in peace, exacting in righteousness. 



LIBERIA'S NEXT FRIEND. 

The Annual Discourse 



DELIVERED AT THE 



SIXTY-NINTH /INNU/IL MEETING 



OF THE 



American Colonization, Society 



HELD IN 



FOUNDRY M-E. CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D- C 
Sunday Evening, Jan'y 17, 1886, 

BY REV. B. SUNDERLAND, D. D. 



Relished by ^e^uest of the £ociety. 



washington city, 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

1886. 



DISCOURSE. 



Africa! Liberia! What hardship and heroism in our time they 
represent. The dark Continent ! The infant Republic ! What mem- 
ories of the past ! What hopes of the future ! 

Providence turns heavy doors on the smallest hinges. No romance 
of fiction can equal the wonders of the way in which a divine purpose 
threads its course through all the maze of human history. From the 
first generations the trend of the human race has been turned hither 
and thither by things in themselves lighter than a feather. 

God first partitioned the land and water and settled the geologic 
and climatic conditions and then divided the nations to their several 
estates- The third part of the Eastern hemisphere, according to 
tradition, fell to the sons of Ham in whose family there was an an- 
cient curse. 

But in the economy of Heaven there is no curse without a bless- 
ing — and often the blessing blossoms from the curse ! Africa became 
the asylum of the two greatest figures in the annals of time. 

A tear-drop on the cheek of a babe in a reed basket among the 
rushes of the Nile gave rise to the fortunes of a people out of whom 
came at last the world's Messiah ! 

When Christ was born, his infancy, like that of Moses, was shel- 
tered in the land of Egypt. That was the only gate of ingress or 
egress which remained unshut round a coast of 16,000 miles. The 
seal of the continent like that of its great pyramid, was left unbroken, 
for centuries. 

About 400 years ago, the Portuguese, then the greatest sailors, 
began to pry around it. Explorations followed. The slave trade, early 
existing, was vastly augmented, by the discovery of America. Church 
and State, monarchy and merchandise, joined hands to make it re- 
spectable. For the next three centuries European rapacity tore from 
their native soil the children of Africa and thrust them on the mar- 
kets of the world. 

One day in 1620 a Dutch ship came up the James river and 
landed the first score of Negro slaves at Jamestown, Virginia. That 
was the beginning of African slavery in this country, leading to long 
bondage, to civil war and final emancipation. It is estimated that 
from 1680 to 1786 England, chiefly, supplied to this country and the 
West Indies 2,130,000 Negro slaves. 



"But there is a soul of good in things evil." One of the most 
conspicuous uses of this country thus far, was to bring these abject 
Pagans into contact with our modern civilization and to pack multi- 
tudes of them into the Christian church. 

About the time of the Revolution, an idea entered the mind of 
a man in New England that the return of the Negro to the land of 
his fathers, would be in order. It caught fire and kindled in other 
minds in various forms in other parts of the country. Years went on 
and Paul Cuffee, an Africo-Indian, born at New Bedford, rising from 
poverty and obscurity, to command money and a ship of his own, 
thought it was time to put this idea in practice. He carried back to 
Africa in his own vessel 40 of his people costing him the sum of $4,- 
000. This was in 181 5. He seems to have been the first practical 
colonizationist. 

The next year he returned to this country and died. A few 
months after, the American Colonization Society was born. 

Seventy years are gone and Liberia, as she stands to-day, is the 
result. The Society has measured the alloted span of a human life 
and it remains now to be seen whether it is moribund or whether 
like the law-giver ol Israel, its "eye is not dim nor its natural force 
abated." 

To the intimate friends of Liberia her story is an oft-told tale. 
Great speakers at the annual meetings of the American Colonization 
Society at Washington and at other times and places have pleaded 
the cause of African colonization. The press has created a literature 
on the subject of more or less permanent character and value. We 
have had the narrative, the sentiment, the antiquity, the poetry, the 
heroism, the sacrifice, the struggle, set before us, copiously, eloquent- 
ly, and with strong conviction. 

The semi-Centennial of the Society was observed in 1867 and 
marked an epoch in its history. The volume of the proceedings of 
that year is accessible to those who would be informed. In addition 
to the addresses and discourses on that occasion, the book contains 
a copy of the Liberian Declaration of Independence, the full text of 
the Constitution of the new Republic, a description of its flag and 
seal, the inaugural address of the first President of Liberia — Hon. J. 
J. Roberts, the annual message of President Warner in 1866, together 
with a list of all the agents and government officials who have acted 
through and for the American Colonization Society — a table of the 
emigrants and of the cost of colonization to that date, and lastly the 
honored names ot the original members of the Society. 

From these and from very many other documents, one great 
fact stands out clearly to our view and that is that the whole civilized 



and Christian world recognizes the relation of the Government of the 
United States to that distant infant African Republic as "her next 
friend." 

Thoughtful and philanthropic men have in former times discuss- 
ed and urged the emancipation of the enslaved blacks, and their re- 
moval to the father-land. Upon the broadest basis it has been shown 
that the people of this country have obligations on this subject of the 
most serious and controlling character, and when we declare that the 
United States is in a large historic sense the founder and necessary 
patron of the Liberian Republic, we assert only what may be known 
and read of all men. 

The contests and suspicions to which the American Colonization 
Society was subjected in the period prior to 1861, have largely passed 
away. Emancipation came through a sea of blood, and in the last 25 
years "the logic of events" has justified the wisdom of our work and 
vindicated for all time the name and character of this now venerable 
organization. 

The imperial monarch of Spain, Charles V, issued a Royal li- 
cense for the importation of African slaves into his American pos- 
sessions. This was in the year of grace, 1516, just 300 years before 
the binh of the American Colonization Society, and it opened wide 
the gates of the slave trade from the western coast of Africa, the 
horrors of "the middle passage" and all the pains of Christian cruelty. 
But Alfonso, the last king on the Spanish throne, whose Roval* 
obsequies were chronicled but the other day, under date of February 
nth, 1882, sent the following epistle to Gardner, the then President 
of Liberia: 

"Great and good Friend: 

Desiring to give you a public testimony of my Royal appreciation 
" and my particular esteem, I have had special pleasure in nominating you 
" Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Isabel the Catholic. I am 
" pleased by this action also to furnish new proof of the desire which animates 
" me to strengthen more and more the friendly relations which happily exist 
" between Spain and the Republic of Liberia, and with this motive, I repeat 
" to you the assurance of the affection which I entertain towards you, and 
" with which, Great and Good Friend, I am 

Your Great and Good Friend, 

Alfonso." 
It is a little stilted and fulsome after the manner of kin^s, but it 
sounds cheerily beside the ruthless decree of Charles V. 

No man can trace the footsteps of Providence in these latter 
days without being constantly surprised at the unexpected and mar- 
velous turn of things. The world is more alive to-day than ever — as 
we discover through constantly accumulating official reports, diplo- 
matic papers, missionary, scientific, exploring, educational and com- 



mercial accounts, which are daily concentrating a flood of light upon 
Africans and Africa. The change on the face of the world— even du- 
ring the existence of the American Colonization Society, invests its 
work with a new and transcendant interest. Here at home a race 
of slaves have been clothed with the franchise of free men and are 
rapidly being educated in the spirit of our civil and religious institu- 
tions, and at this moment seven millions of people of African blood 
stand confronted with the future, and like Saul of Tarsus in the way 
to Damascus — are compelled to ask — "Lord what wilt Thou have me 
to do?" 

True, there is a divided opinion among them. We have no wish 
to conceal the facts. There are many men in this country with Af- 
rican blood in their veins who rage at the faintest hint of what they 
are pleased to term expatriation. They have no special love for this 
venerable Society. To the prayer of Father Snowden — a colored 
preacher of Boston many years ago, they would shout a loud 
" Amen !" 

"Oh, Lord, we pray Thee that that seven-headed and ten-horned monster, 
the Colonization Society, may be smitten through and through with the fiery darts 
of truth, and tormented as the whale between the sword-fish and the thrasher." 

Yet to-day, half a million of Father Snowden's people are seek- 
ing light from the "ten-horned monster" and turning a wistful gaze 
on the far-off fatherland. 

The Society has done nothing to bring about this state of things. 
The only activity in this direction has been information imparted 
at the request of the Negroes. 

But it is said they are all free born now — what more do they 
want? Why should thev go to Africa? Is not America good enough 
for the colored people ? 

Answers to these questions are piled up month after month on the 
table of the Executive Committee of the Society, and we are forced to 
go over and over them and then lay them aside for want of means to 
respond effectively and ' thus the years are passing away with too little 
done. They come from all quarters — as well from New England as 
from Texas ; from New York as from Alabama — and thev want to 
go. Take a specimen case. 

The Rev. Mr. Brockenton, pastor of a Baptist church of more 
than i.ooo members, in Darlington, S. C, evidently a prominent man 
in his Church, in his State and county and town, in a letter 
of December 12th, 1884, says, that he. with his family and 
a large company of his people, wishes to go to Afiica for the follow- 
ing reasons: 

1. Because I want to continue my good work for the Master. 



2. Because I think my Christian influence is more needed there than 
here. 3. Because the harvest in Africa is great, but the laborers are 
few. 4. Because my children are trained teachers or mechanics and 
as such can assist in building up our father-land. $. Because my 
condition as a man will be better established ind my work as a minis- 
ter better appreciated. 

Sound and sensible reasons — reasons which are almost daily re- 
iterated by the colored people who are waking up to the question of 
their future duty and condition. 

President Roberts in a public discourse on his last visit to this 
country said : " I have no disposition to urge my colored brethren to 
leave the country, but as for me I could not live in the United States." 
Professor Freeman of Liberia College while on a visita few years ago 
at Pittsburgh, Pa., where he had formerly spent 12 years as a teacher 
in a college for the education of colored students, was offered strong 
inducements to remain and resume his former position in that insti- 
tution, but he refused. The Trustees then asked. " What will you 
stay for, Freeman ? " His reply was in substance this : " I will stay, 
gentlemen, for what either of you white men would consent to be- 
come a Negro for, and live in Pennsylvania and transmit his social 
status to his children." 

But this is not all. Every settlement in Liberia is calling for pop- 
ulation from the United States. The Honorable Z. B. Roberts, one of 
the Justices of the Supreme Court writes as follows: " Sinoe county 
was planted by your philanthropy in common with the other por- 
tions of Liberia. It is heavily timbered, has a fertile soil, a bar for 
shipping at all seasons of the year and a river abounding in fish includ- 
ing superior oysters. Our evergreen palm-trees lift up their tower- 
ing heads, waving majestically their glossy limbs and broad leaves, 
their trunks filled with crimson fruit for home use and for exporta- 
tion. There is room here for Africa's sons in America to enjoy with 
us this God-given land. Emigrants are needed—those that will re- 
solve, in coming, to labor for the elevation of themselves, their child- 
ren and their race. Men whose bosoms swell with a deep love of lib- 
erty, mechanics, farmers miners and teachers are greatly desired !" 

Liberia is waiting to receive them. The cry is louder than ever. 
The basis of feeling is fast changing among the colored people, and 
where before they had distrust of the motive and influence of Coloniz- 
ation, they now begin to act from higher incentives and grander 
considerations. The light of this venerable Society is beginning to be 
comprehended in quarters where it was so long excluded. Emigra- 
tion by Africans, of Africans and for Africans is coming to be the pi- 
broch of thousands who would hail to-day the means of exodus from 



8 

America. It is not simply the selfish gain of which they dream, but 
an inspiration of Heaven which, like a mighty wind, is filling heart and 
mind and soul and sense to render aid to the children of the mighty 
land of Ham. 

T. McCants Stewart, one of the young men sent out some two 
years since to be a professor in the College of Liberia, after a few 
months sojourn, has returned and published a book in which, while 
avowing himself to be " nota colonizationist " he nevertheless pre- 
sents a most powerful argument for emigration. The very matters he 
exhibits to show the weakness of Liberia, are to us reasons trumpet- 
tongued why we should at once pour in a tide of emigration upon her 
waste places — why we should lose no time in " strengthening the 
things that remain." 

Would he have emigration cease? Why, one-half the human 
race has been in a state of emigration since Abram left Urr of the 
Chaldees ! Emigration to America begun so soon as the Continent 
was discovered and it has not ceased to this hour. The first necessi- 
ty of a State is men. Napoleon when asked " What France most 
needed" ? replied, " Mothers! " 

Meanwhile the eyes of Europe are gloating on African possessions 
as they never did before. In almost every European capital or- 
ganizations exist encouraged by kings and parliaments or by power, 
ful private wealth which, from one motive or another, are centering 
their energies upon different portions of the Negro Continent. The 
great Powers are already dividing their protectorates and planting 
their standards over the older or newer colonies which their enter- 
prise has established. It is a scramble for territory, for markets for the 
over-production and manufactures of the leading nations of the world, 
for commercial adventure, and in part also for scientific research, 
along with which the Church must toil for the extension of Christian- 
ity. 

And when, in a material point of view, we consider that Africa 
controls the diamond market of the world, that it yields vast quanti- 
ties of gold, that its palm oil is nowhere else to be found, can we 
wonder that " the mammon of unrighteousness " is looking at it with 
the eyes of a boa constrictor ? 

And latest and most surprising of all looms up " the Free State 
of the Congo." 

Here is another marvellous thread of Providence. Many years 
ago a man begins to publish in the city of New York an insignificant 
newspaper. Years pass on, the journal grows in size and sinew. A waif 
floating on the drifting tide of humanity, is put on the staff of the 
newspaper and becomes a war correspondent. The founder of the 



journal dies. His son, more aspiring than the father, looks round for 
new fields of enterprise. Just then a successor of Mungo Park, an 
illustrious African explorer, is lost and the world wonders if he is 
dead. An English journal dreams of what might be done. A 
scheme to find him enters the brain of the ambitous journalist, and 
the stray waif, now a sturdy henchman of the Press, is put in charge 
of the distant search. Livingstone is found and Stanley grows fa- 
mous in a day ! 

He went upon a second search, Livingstone died and his 
mantle fell upon Stanley. He explored the Congo and was 
feted in England and at the Continental Courts. The effort fruited 
in the formation of the •' International African Association," and the 
"Free State of the Congo," of which Leopold of Belgium is the head and 
Stanley the prime-minister. The flag of^the "New State" is a field 
of blue with a golden star. It' already floats over twenty-two prosper- 
ous settlements, one thousand miles of unobstructed river navigation 
and a productive contiguous area of 6 millions of square miles, sup- 
porting a population of 50 millions of natives. What novel ever had 
a page to surpass it ? 

Following this, it is but about a year since that Germany called a 
vast Conference at Berlin, Bismarck presiding, at which explorers, di- 
plomats and ministers representing all there is of Europe, Turkey 
and the United States, assisted. Treaties were formed and conditions 
established among the great Powers vitally affecting Africa and its 
people, but they were not at all consulted. Our representatives were 
present by direction of our Government and doubtless from the most 
praise-worthy motives, and they finally become signatories to the 
work of the Conference. What they did there was large of purpose 
abounding in philanthropic zeal. But it is the first time in our 
history when such a thing was ever done. We are a singular people. 
The nations are coming to know us better, and while in diplomacy 
we are as exclusive as China itself.we ought not to be at all squeam- 
ish when standing as " the next friend " to the little sister on the 
African coast. It is high time for the people of this country to wake 
up to the designs of European Powers. 

What is the meaning of it all ? Does Japheth, no longer satisfied 
with his portion of the world, intend to supplant and despoil his 
brother Ham? Is the African slave trade to be followed bv subjuga- 
tion on the soil and a provincial policy as oppressive as the feudalism 
of the middle ages ? Will the pale face encroach on the black man in 
Africa as he does on the red man in America — leaving extermina- 
tion to the weaker, and a black, black record to the stronger which no 
tears of repentance can wash, away? Is Africa after all not to be 
ruled by Africans ? Is it to be wrenched away from its own sons — to 



become only a European dependency, without autonomy or self-ex- 
istence? 

The answer which the American Colonization Society makes to 
these questions is "Liberia!"— A free Christian Republic already 
planted in one of the fairest regions of the African Continent—the 
dangers and difficulties of the beginning overcome, the fears of friends 
and the jeers of foes passing away — the light of Christian civilization 
shining there in the midst of Pagan daikress. 

This is the answer of the initiatory steps and stages of that en" 
terprize, and of the noble advocates, the self-denying agents and the 
generous benfactors of Liberia. It is the answer ot the first emigrants 
and emphatically of Elijah Johnson a principal man among them, and 
whose son is now the President of that. Republic. As their 
designs became known they awakened the opposition of the native 
tribes and at a moment of great peril from their assaults, the officers 
of a vessel appearing there offered to assist the colonists against their 
assailants on condition that they should be granted ten feet square 
of ground on which to plant the English flag. " No sirs ! " cried the 
old man, " Not an inch. I have long sought a free home for me and 
mine, I have found it here at last, if we allow you to hoist that flag 
upon our soil, it will be harder for us to pull it down than it will be 
to fight the natives ! " 

What did Washington and Lincoln ever say more heroic ? 

Aye, and we could trace this answer through all the growth of 
that colony under the fostering rare of our Society— in its declaration 
of Independence in 1847, in its Constitution and Republican form of 
government, in its beautiful situation, in the variety and value of its 
natural products, in the extention of its public domain, in its agricul- 
tural and commercial development, in the establishment of education 
and the Christian religion, in its remarkable state of society consider- 
ing all the conditions by which it has been so deeply affected, in its 
great influence upon the suppression of the slave-trade and the up- 
lifting of the native tribes, and finally in the prospect of its future 
position as the morning-star of African regeneration. 

To the schemes of Europe for the possession and control of 
Africa, we oppose this infant Government which has already demon- 
strated the two cardinal facts of African capability and African des- 
tiny — that is to say — that Negroes are equal to the highest known 
form of self-government— advancing their institutions by peaceful 
methods and bloodless contests. 

What, then, is the objection to Liberia. Why should she not 
have free course ? Why should her voice be hushed in the conclave 
of the nations ? 



ist. It is styled the land of Negroes — an inferior race — with the 
old family curse upon them — the sons of Ham. It is said that mod- 
ern evolution has proved "the survival of the fittest'" which must 
ultimately drive them to the wall. 

Our answer is that all this is superficial dogma — not to be cured 
by sending to Liberia a refined and hyper-educated class, too proud 
or too indolent to take up the task of improvement, and too haughty 
to mingle with the common people of that country. We say also 
that if the family curse ever followed that people, it is now high time 
to maintain that it should be exhausted — to maintain that 'Ethio- 
opia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." And is it not like- 
wise clear that up to this date "the survival of the fittest" in Africa 
means the survival of Africans, and that it will take a long time for 
evolution to drive two hundred millions of them to the wall ? It is 
equally illusive in the light of history, to talk of "inferior races," 
while the fact is that on a broad scale there are no inferior races, 
that is no races incapable of becoming dominant in the world through 
the development of intrinsic qualities. We must remember that an 
African civilization is one of the oldest of which we know, standing 
in the very dawn of history. 

2. But then there is the African fe . r; who is going to encoun- 
ter that for the sake of Liberia- for the sake of Africa ? We have no 
interest in them. Let them take care of themselves ! 

Is it not strange that men should be so inveterately hostile to 
the interest of Christian civilization in a quarter of the globe where 
others, for sordid gain, are willing to expose themselves to every haz- 
zard ! We cannot comprehend the stolidity which objects to all ex- 
ertions from the highest motives and in the same breath smiles upon 
efforts which arise alone from mercenary considerations. Who ever 
heard of physical danger extinguishing the spirit of adventure? 
In 1849 the Isthmus was white with the bones of men rushing for 
gold into California. But acclimation was possible to the miners, 
and so the resources of that great coast are being developed. Jt re- 
mains to be seen whether as a rule acclimation is possible to the 
white man in Africa. Up to this date the climate is deadly--the 
fever fatal to the Caucasian race. Nobody knows much about it save 
the single fact that it spares the natives who are usually robust and 
long lived, with very few diseases; but it furiously attacks white 
strangers and with rare exceptions never lets up on them, but either 
kills them or drives them out. It is not so however with the foreign 
born Negroes, who after the first experience and acclimation, find no 
further trouble. Now what is the meaning of this? If we heard a 
voice from heaven, could it speak plainer the will of Him who "di- 



vided the nations? ' We seem to hear Him saying: '"This is why the 
sons of Ham are black. I have fitted them for the equatorial region 
and have fixed the climate so that no white race can flourish there. 
Beware then, ye sons of Japheth. Covet not the land of the Negroes. 
If you approach those shores for conquest, I have set my tiger in the 
lowlands. He will spring upon and kill you !" That we take it is 
the mission of the African fever. It is the watch dog of Liberia ! No 
wonder the burglars from abroad dislike it— and because they dis- 
like it, we think it is where it ought to be, and doing what it ought 
to do. 

3. There are evil tidings of Liberia brought by a Naval officer 
charging that domestic slavery exists sub rasa in that Republic; that 
the citizens secretly encourage it, in some cases buying and working 
slaves from the native tribes. Some very lofty falsehood is no doubt 
prevalent. The calumny is refuted by the Constitution and laws of 
the Republic. A system of apprenticeship does prevail, but the courts 
severely punish the man who is found dabbling in the loathsome 
slave customs of the savage tribes, and that slavery exists in Liberia 
has been so repeatedly and emphatically denied by numerous most 
competent and credible witnesses, that it becomes a mere question 
of personal veracity, and when the truth of the case comes to light 
we have no fear that Liberia will be dishonored. As well might we 
say because a few old slaves — the legacy of a former generation — still 
linger in our Indian tribes, or because Coolies from China have been 
smuggled into the country, that slavery exists in the United States, 
and that this Government should be abolished as a national nuisance. 

4. From a similar source it has been objected that Liberia to- 
day is going backward, that the second and third generations are re- 
lapsing, that there is in the country, and especially in the towns, 
streets and buildings, an air of retrogression, that the people lack fore- 
sight and enterprise, that everything shows them to be a childish 
race, not worth the pains which Christian philanthropy has expended 
upon them. In accepting strictures like these, great caution is neces- 
sary. No lies are so dangerous as those which are false in the blade 
and true in the handle. According to the latest reports from Liberia, 
the business of agriculture and trade is extending with gratifying re- 
sults, and the value of the annual exports is growing larger year by 
year. This single fact is a sufficient answer to the libel of retrogres- 
sion. Nobody pretends that perfection has been reached in Liberia. 
Nobody pretends that human nature there any more thin elsewhere 
has Eden innocence and virtue. All we claim is that taking every- 
thing into consideration, Liberia is ajsuccess and will be more and 
more a success in the future. All beginnings are small, all great 



13 

things are born of trouble, why should Liberia be an exception? Sup. 
pose some foreign naval officer should land at Alexandria, hurry 
rapidly through the town, move on to Richmond and down to Nor- 
folk in the same superficial way, and then hasten home and file a 
report in the navy department that America is on the wane, that the 
people are thriftless and all looks dilapidated; what should we think 
of the value of such testimony ? 

Then put over against this what has been already accomplished, 
the obstacles surmounted, the difficulties removed, the success at- 
tained, and have we not a guaranty for the future in the very fact of 
the existence of the Republic as it is at the present moment ? It is 
not an easy task to wipe out a people that against such odds from 
the beginning has made such headway and are stronger to-day than 
ever. It took our "old thirteen colonies" 150 years to prepare for 
the assertion of -'Independence." It was only about a score of years 
that saw Liberia advancing from nothingness to take her place in the 
ranks of sovereign independent States. We think we have here a 
living germ of nationality destined to survive every vicissitude and 
become the seed-corn and normal principle of free government and 
Christian civilization for all Africa. 

5. Adverse criticism might fall upon Liberian diplomacy in the 
settlement of some great questions vitally affecting the fortunes of 
the Republic. But allowance must be made from the circumstance 
that a pigmy is brought to face a giant in arbitrament. The final 
settlement of the North-west boundary of the Republic with all its 
antecedents is a chapter of public dishonor from which we turn away 
with a sense of nausea. Talk of diplomacy between the wolf and the 
lamb ! What could Liberia do but submit while the Government of 
the United States, acknowledged by all the world as "the next friend" 
of Liberia, after having said that it would regard any injustice done 
to her "with positive disfavor," was obliged to stand calmly by and 
to see its umpire snubbed, the arbitration broken off, and forty miles 
of sea-coast coolly usurped by England and never say a word ! 

6. Exception might be taken to the fiscal ^management 
of the Republic. It cannot be maintained that any giant ge- 
nius of finance has yet come to the front among the Liber- 
ans, and it must be confessed that a cloud of debt hangs over them 
at this moment which is by no means flattering to their self-consider- 
ation. Still, even though upon specious pretexts, they have been 
despoiled ot 40 miles of sea-coast, their credit has not sunken low- 
er than that of this country in the days of Washington. Nor has 
their currency depreciated beneath the old continental paper which 
circulated so low that a hatful of it would scarcely purchase a square 



i 4 

meal for a hearty hungry man. All nations have been in debt. Look 
at the annual budgets of the great Powers to-day. Liberia is not 
singular in her struggle with the financial difficulties in the first forty 
years of her national existence. We confidently hope that in her pres- 
ent emergency, some Hamilton or Robert Morris may rise to con- 
duct her in safety through the storm. 

7. It has been intimated that the Liberians are frivolous, too 
fond of dress and show. Considering the plain taste and demure cos- 
tume of the world's people elsewhere— say for example among " the- 
higher fashionables " of American cities, what an awful thing this is ! 
Seriously however, the reliable testimony is that the customs, habits 
and houses of the Liberians will compare favorably with those of the 
same class here at home. There are relatively no more drones, dudes 
or coquettes in the Liberian towns than in the great towns of 
England or America. The observation is too trivial for further com- 
ment, 

8. There remains another and more recent report which involves 
alike the work of this Society and the character of the people in Li- 
beria. It is now insisted to the detriment of our cause that the class 
of emigrants sent out from this country to populate "the waste 
places" there is of an inferior character, and that any further effort to- 
supply Liberia with colored people from America is inexpedient and 

unwise. 

We answer this by saying that even if, the charge were strictly 

true it is no argument against colonization, and no real friend of Af. 
rica will use it. On the other hand it ought properly to become a 
powerful incentive to greater carefulness and exertion. 

Of course it could scarcely be otherwise than that out of the 
whole body of emigrants which this Society has sent there during the 
last sixty years some may have proved to be bad material. The best 
human judgment and foresight cannot provide against every conting- 
ency, and certainly not in a case like this when culling and selecting 
individuals is impracticable, when emigrants have to he sent in fam- 
ilies, bands, and companies. But taking together^e whole mass of> 
the emigrants the charge is libelous and cruel. It is an unjust reflec- 
tion on the whole work of this Society and should be frowned down by 
every man who has any poper knowledge of the history and present 
status of Liberia. It stands there to-day a grand germinal point for 
all manner of progress and improvement, and for the spread of civil 
and religious institutions over the whole Continent. With such a 
position and prospect is it possible for Liberia to go backward, or for 
this Society to cease its efforts, or for this Government to be deaf to- 
the trumpet-call for help in the present juncture? 



'5 

Liberia has on her south-eastern border a magnificent domain 
between the Cavalla and San Pedro rivers, the title to which is 
questioned by England, as though she were preparing on some plaus- 
ible pretext — perhaps the maturing loan of a million dollars,--to take 
up another 40 miles of the coast line of the Republic. To prevent 
this and other hostile contingencies, we need to pour into that quar- 
ter of Liberia in the next two years ten thousand of the choicest Afri- 
cans we have. We cannot do this by the tardy and inadequate aid of 
private beneficence. The only feasible way is by an appropriation of 
a million dollars from the Public Treasury voted by Congress and 
sanctioned by the President under the wisest safe-guards attainable, 
and for this we ask you to petition. Let it be the voice of the 
people. Before another year is spent we want to hear the echoes of 
this appeal from every quarter of the country; we w,ant to reverse the 
apothegm of Berkley, and say as by this signal of African regenera- 
tion, " Hail all Nations ! " — " Eastward the star of Empire takes its 
course :" 

As well stated in the last Annual Report of the Society. " The 
lesson taught by all experience is this : That the interior 
of Africa can be reached and the coast can be effectively 
occupied for commercial aud colonization purposes but in 
one way, and that is through colonies of civilized Negroes, for only 
they can colonize equatorial Africa and live. But England, France 
and Germany have no means of securing such colonists. England 
cannot offer inducements to Negroes in the West Indies to go and 
build .up the waste places of their father-land. Such an exodus 
would in a few years depopulate the West Indies and reduce some of 
the wealthiest of those Islands to a poverty-stricken wilderness. She 
cannot send recaptured Africans from her colonies at Sierra Leone, 
Gambia or Lagos. They have not enough civilization in its relations 
to commerce and the industrial arts. France cannot depopulate 
Gaudaloupe or Martinique to furnish Negroes to the interior of Sene- 
gal or Goree. Germany has no colonies of civilized Negroes from 
which to draw emigrants for her African projects. The only man then 
available for the great work of opening Africa to commerce and civil- 
ization is the Negro of America. He can live there, for it is the habi- 
tat of his race, and being fully civilized and Christian too, he is the 
agent, and the only agent that the world contains adapted to this 
purpose. He has proved his adaptation and efficiency in the work 
thus far accomplished by the Republic of Liberia. 

"It is stated that the British Government have expended immense 
sums to keep the peace and to promote trade along the route be- 
tween Sego and Sierra Leone. But the principle of the Liberia estab- 



i6 

lishment has done more and will do more to keep the peace and pro- 
mote trade than all the wealth of England, without colonists, can do. 
"Now the American Colonization Society is the only organized agency 
for developing this important influence, and transferring to this vast 
and productive field the only agents that can profitably cultivate it. 
The amalgamation of civilized agencies with the indigenous elements 
is the only statesmanlike and effective mode of solving the prob- 
lem of African civilization, and the only agencies available for such 
amalgamation are in the United States - " 

And I may add, they can be sent without injury to any home in- 
terest, whatsoever, and they are ready and anxious to go ! Ten thous- 
and of the very best ought to occupy that south-eastern part of Li- 
beria in the next two years. It will cost a million dollars. Where is 
this million ? Just yonder in the vaults of the treasury of the United 
States. 

Why should not this Government come to the rescue now ? If 
ever there was a debt from one people to another this country owes it 
to the African race. Every consideration of philanthropy, of patriot- 
ism and of piety combines to confirm the obligation. 

While it is not claimed that Liberia has ever been the ward of 
our Government in any substantial sense, yet its kind offices and its 
money have been expended in a spirit of friendliness and national 
comity which entitle it beheld as "the next friend " of that infant 
nation. The Presidents Jefferson, Madison and Monroe took a spec- 
ial interest in the destiny of the free people of color in this country. 
During the administration of Jefferson and while Monroe was Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, emancipation and subsequent provision for the 
Negroes occupied the attention of all Southern statesmen. 

When afterwards Monroe became President, by his enlightened 
interpretation of the act of March 3d, 1819, providing for the return 
of re-captured Negroes to Africa, he furnished the means by which 
the work of this Society was practically commenced. By his direc- 
tion the Navy Department chartered the ship " Elizabeth " giving 
passage to 86 Negroes. These were " the pilgrim fathers" o ( Liberia. 
They were attended by a war vessel and sailed from New York Feb, 
5, 1820, just 200 years from the landing of the May Flower at Ply- 
mouth Rock. 

Cape Mesurado on which stands Monrovia, the capital of the 
Republic, was purchased from the natives December 15 1821, largely 
by the individual persistence and intrepidity of Commodore Robert 
F. Stockton, who was sent to explore and select a point for the colon- 
ists, and since that day the United States Government has made Li- 
beria the asylum for nearly six thousand re-captured Africans. 



i7 

Our Government concluded a treaty with Liberia, Oct. 21, 1862 
Article 8 of that treaty is as follows: "The United States Govern- 
ment engages not to interfere, unless solicited by the Government of 
Liberia, in the affairs between the original inhabitants and the Gov- 
ernment of the Republic of Liberia, in the jurisdiction and territories 
of the Republic. Should any U. S. citizen suffer loss, in person or 
property, from violence by the aboriginal inhabitants, and the gov- 
ernment of the Republic of Liberia should not be able to bring the 
aggressors to justice, the U. S. Government engages, a requisition 
having first been made therefor by the Liberian Government, to lend 
such aid as may be required." 

How is this for an "entangling alliance !" The Government of 
the United States has frequently expressed more than a mere inter- 
est — memorably in dispatches from the Department of State by Sec- 
retary Upshur in 1843, and more recently by Secretary Evarts in 1879 
and by Secretary Frelinghuysen in 1882. More than once has the 
Navy Department responded to the request of this Society by send- 
ing Government vessels with distinguished officers to the coast of 
Africa with friendly designs. 

The first message of President Cleveland devotes a well con- 
sidered paragraph to these great interests in Africa, and we are fain 
to think from the nature of the man and those he has called around 
him, that both he and his Cabinet would be favorably disposed to- 
ward any legislation by Congress which should be with proper safe- 
guards and conditions framed for the purpose of aiding emigration to 
the sister Republic. 

Can there be any question if Congress were so disposed, as to the 
constitutionality of an appropriation ? While millions are voted for 
expositions, for subsidies, for school purposes, for internal improve- 
ments, for unnumbered charities, for disasters by fire and flood and 
famine — while the resources of the country are overflowing, — while 
thousands upon thousands of colored people are anxiously praying 
for the means of exodus, what possible objection can there be to 
such an act of magnanimity? 

At this moment of all others does it not become us to strengthen 
the hands of the inlant nation? Liberia has recently been cited by 
international lawyers to prove that communities founded by private 
persons for industrial and commercial purposes may in the course of 
time assume sovereign rights. 

We have reached a point where nothing will answer but to go 
forward. If this Society would vindicate its right to be in the future 
there must be placed before it a new and larger purpose, more faith 
and more energy. Let steps be taken at once to prepare the public 



mind and Congress and the entire Government for an onward move- 
ment of emigration. Let some adequate plan of action be adopted 
to bring before the two Houses the question of a generous appropri- 
ation. It was the opinion of Mr. Webster, the greatest constitutional 
lawyer on the American roll of fame, publicly and clearly expressed, 
that such an appropriation would be legitimate. 

In the proceedings of the Society at its annual meeting of 1852, 
a powerful plea was made by the Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, of Tenn., 
for the favor and encouragement of the Government in behalf of the 
work of this Society. President Fillmore and his Secretary of State, 
Mr. Webster, were both present. At that meeting Mr. Webster pre- 
sided and in the speech which he made on that occasion, he used this 
language: 

"It appears to me that this emigration is nofimpracticable. What is it to the 
great resources of this country to send out 100,000 persons a year to Africa ? In 
my opinion without any violation of the analogies which we have followed in other 
cases, in pursuance of our commercial regulations upon the same principles as have 
already been stated by the Hon. gentleman from Tenn., who has addressed the 
meeting, it is within our constitution— it is within the powers and provisions of 
that constitution as part of our commercial arrangements, just as we enter into 
treaties and pass laws for the suppression of the slave-trade." 

With many such like words did this great man testify to his 
convictions, and subsequently when President Lincoln was brought 
face to face with the question of Negro destiny in this country, he 
did not hesitate to say that to solve this problem the money of the 
treasury of the United States should be brought into requisition. In 
pursuance of his recommendation, Congress took action looking to 
the colonization of the Negroes of this country, and a large sum of 
money was appropriated in this behalf. Propositions were made to 
secure some region south of the United States on the American 
continent— for in that day Liberian colonization was not so popular 
as it promises yet to become, and so in a singularly providential 
manner, the whole project came to nothing. But it serves to show 
both what was thought of the legitimacy of such appropriations, and 
how also the best laid schemes are delayed or diverted to give place 
to the sovereign will of God. 

The cry of the desolate is ringing in our ears. From every sec- 
tion of the country where these people are to be found we hear the 
voice of the exodus. A great home-sickness for Africa has been be- 
gotten in the hearts of multitudes, and every wind bears to our ears 
the pining and the moan. 

Wc owe it to them. The unrequited servitude of 250 years 
stares at us like a note of hand already long matured. When the 
Hebrew slaves departed from Egypt they went out loaded with the 



19 

gold and jewels of the realm. God sanctioned the deed to give them 
compensation for their toil — and the same Jehovah is to-day upon the 
throne to put down one and raise up another. He will see to it that 
the price is paid. If we now withhold the wages, He will take it from 
this nation in some other way. The balance is in his hand, and His 
word to America is "Pay your debt." He gave the Hebrews favor in the 
eyes of the Egyptians. The same must come to pass for the Negroes- 
There is with the Supreme Ruler no bankrupt law by which we may 
escape. 

Look at the money now being spent on Africa in promotion of 
European designs. The richest exchequers are open for diplomacy, 
for trade, for acquisition. All kinds of firms and monopolies are pour- 
ing out their treasures in the hope of gain. Two lines comprising 
28 steamships are running from Liverpool to the western coast of 
Africa. France, Germany, and Portugal have each a monthly line. 
A belt of Christian missions already engirds the Continent, and the 
videttes of the grand army of the Church of Christ have even now 
reached the lake region, the banks of the Zambesi and the Niger and 
the broad basin of the Congo. All this is being done at immense ex- 
pense, and the United States in a Governmental capacity stands idly 
looking on with hands in pocket and purse shut, not appropriating 
one single dollar to forward the cause of emigration or in proof of 
the claim and the favor of standing before the nations as the "next 
friend" of the young Republic. 

The unrest of the colored people here, and their eagerness to 
reach the fatherland, has begun to kindle the keenest interest all 
along the coast of Africa, both in and beyond Liberia, and an earnest 
desire prevails to welcome back the children of their fathers. 

We have come to a crisis ! The land ought to be shaken from 
centre to circumference on this question. Let the better genius of 
the Press, that mightiest engine of modern civilization, take up the 
subject. Let the American Church speak out. Let the massive and 
ever augmenting cohorts of Methodism, whose camp-fires glow in 
every nation under heaven, and whose mighty tread is as the angel 
of God beneath whose feet the rock-ribbed earth is trembling — let 
the solid army of the Baptists, whose ranks are thick with Converts 
standing for the defence of the common faith of Israel— let the Epis- 
copalians, whose banners stream upon the rejoicing air and whose 
altar-fires grow beautiful in the great dawn of the advancing day — let 
the Presbyterians, the sons of French Huguenots, of Scotch Cove- 
nanters, and of Irish Ulster men-mailed with iron shield and stalwart 
in the heat of battle as the gray crags of Switzerland— let the Con- 
gregationalists, whose pilgrim fathers colonized New England's shores 



and made the coast one line of freedom's glorious light — in the midst 
of which their Boston stands to-day— outshining Athens as Christ 
outshone the Socrates of old — let the Lutheran, whose name recalls 
the Reformation and makes us hear again the unfettered voice of 
that intrepid monk who shook the Papal world— let the fervent 
Quaker, whose illustrious pioneer brought hither the benignant spirit 
of his Order, and gave title to the "Key-Stone State" and perpetuated 
his piety in the very nan:e of her magnificent city — let the sectary 
of every name, Protestant and Romish, join hands to- 
gether to solicit this grand subsidy of national benificence. We 
are paying now at the rate of $18,000 for a Congressional funeral. 
Let the flood-gates of petition be opened upon Congress, and from 
every class and from every corner roll in upon that Body a volume of 
supplication. Man's extremity is God's opportunity ! On this matter 
likewise the maxim will be true to the letter in the ears of Congress. 
— "The voice of the people is the voice of God !" 

At Waterloo the flails of Napoleon fell heavily and long on the 
hollow squares of Wellington. "Hard pounding this, gentlemen !" he 
eried, "but we must pound the longest." At last the moment came 
and the voice rang like a trumpet in every soldier's fiber, "up guards 
and at them !" That was the final order— the herald cry of victory ! 
Too long has silence reigned in the camp of this American philan- 
thropy. Too long have the friends of Liberia withheld their last 
appeal. The hour is come when we must win success with our own 
nation and demonstrate in a way we have never done before that 
this Republic is indeed "the next friend" of that over yonder, rising 
as the day-star of African regeneration, and that we are glad and 
proud of this relationship. 

No misgivings— no tremblings— no waverings now ! The world 
is beginning to acknowledge the spirit and methods of this Society 
and to vindicate by overwhelming testimony the practical wisdom 
in which it had its origin. If ever in our times the guiding hand of 
Omnipotence is visible in human affairs, it has been in the labors and 
results of the American Colonization Society. 

I will end therefore as I began — heavy doors on the smallest 
hinges ! If on that night in the church in Georgetown, dimly lighted 
with tallow candles, where Francis S. Key, author of the "Star 
Spangled Banner," was pleading with silver tongue the cause of col- 
onization, no one could have foretold the transcendent results which 
have since transpired before our eyes, who shall say that from this 
very altar around which we gather on this occasion, a flood-tide may 
not spring which shall roll to the remotest limit of the Republic and 
rouse a mighty people as with the hand of one man to a new and 



21 



grander benificence and to exertions that shall never cease till over 
all the soil of Africa a song responsive to our own shall swell. 
And the flag of the stripes and the white star shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 



AMERICA AP AFRICA. 



The Annual Discourse 



DELIVERED AT THE 



SEVE.NTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY 



()E THE 



American Colonization Society. 



WASHINGTON, T). C, 

JANUARY 15, 1888, 



Rev. J. ASPINWALL HODGE, D. D. 

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT. 



Published at the fttquEST of the Society. 



WASHINGlpN CITY, 

Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue 

1888. 



DISCOURSE. 

Psalms 67 : 4. 

"0 let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the people 
righteously, and govern the nations upon earth." 

The sovereignty of God is the only source of confidence and 
praise. Fate, chance, the action and reaction of the forces of nature, 
the confused struggle of men to accomplish each his own purpose 
and the presence and influence of spiritual principalities and powers, 
the more they are considered, increase anxiety and despair. "The 
Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of the isles be, 
glad thereof." He rules and overrules ; nothing can occur amiss ; all 
things shall accomplish His gracious purposes. 

God's sovereignty is recognized in the accomplishment of salva- 
tion. The opposition of the devil is in vain. "Against the holy child 
Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peo- 
ple of Israel, were gathered together," but could do only "whatsoever 
His hand and His counsel determined before to be done." He. as 
the Lord over all, defends His church, and leads her to certain vic- 
tory and universality, notwithstanding all possible combinations for 
her persecution and annihilation. In His daily providence, " He 
thinks upon" each, even "the poor and needy." " He causeth all 
things to work together for good to thern that love God." He num- 
bers their hairs, will not permit their feet to slide, answers their 
prayers, and enriches them with all temporal and spiritual good. "'No 
one is able to pluck them out of His hand." .All this is taught in the 
text, and calls forth songs of praise and confidence even in the 
darkest hour. Yet special reference is here made to God's sover- 
eignty over nations. In other passages, He is said to determine their 
rise, peculiar characteristics, bounds and powers, for the sake of His 
church, for her development, training, enlightenment, reproof, chast- 
ening, and final increase, until she shall include and bless all natior.s. 
All are embraced in the covenant with Abraham, and shall compose 
that innumerable multitude which shall praise Christ, as King of 
Kings and Lord of Lords. 

Our text, however, like many in the Psalms, presents, not the 
God of Providence, but the Sovereign Ruler, who shall govern and 
judge the nations upon earth. Whatever may be their religions, true 
or false ; their gods, the one living and true, or many imaginary, ma- 



terial or devilish ; their forms of government, their ethics, their policy 
and purpose, " He that sitteth in the heavens" is their only law- 
giver; their sole executive, who proclaims His decrees and enforces 
their execution; and He is the only judge who can expound His law 
and justify or condemn. In the church in the wilderness and in 
Judea, there was a mercy seat, sprinkled with blood by the High 
Priest. The kingdom of heaven, established on earth, was "Glory to 
God in the highest and good will toward men," a proclamation of 
pardon to every creature. And in the new paradise of God, there 
will be a rainbow round about the throne, on which is seated the 
Lamb that had been slain. But the throne set over nations is of do- 
minion and of justice. "The Lord reigns." "Thou shalt govern 
the nations." " Thou shalt judge the people." His sceptre is "a rod 
of iron." " He is clothed with majesty." "With righteousness shall 
He judge the world, and the people with equity." For individuals, 
both righteous and wicked, there will be a judgment at the last day. 
Throughout all their probation God deals with them in mercy, by 
His goodness He leads them to repentance, and by affliction He 
warns them to seek Him early. But for nations, there is no future 
retribution. He governs and judges them now. He often delays the 
final and full execution, nevertheless His every act toward nations 
is according to equity and justice. " Clouds and darkness are round 
about Him," the emblems of His mysterious and portentous majesty 
and power. " Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His 
throne." Mercy finds no place here. The laws are right and inflexi- 
ble, and "every transgression and disobedience receives a just recom- 
pense of reward." " Righteousness," not autocratic caprice, nor 
changing policies, but conlormity to eternal essential right, derived 
from the nature and character of God. • "The Judge of all the earth 
will do right." His law or will, however made known to nations, is 
determined by this principle. All E I is providential ruling and over 
ruling, restraininyarul permitting, is according to righteousness. "Arid 
judgment," the administration of justice. Might does not make 
riyht to individuals nor to nations. These are not at liberty to form 
their own policies at pleasure, to maintain peace, to inaugurate war, 
to subjugate others, or to appropriate their territories. — restrained 
only by the power of other nations singly or combined. Every act is 
either in accordance with or in violation of God's law. He holds 
each nation to a strict account, and He gives to each according to its 
deeds. "Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His 
throne." It may be said that this is at variance with the usual con- 
ception of God. There is a tendency to unduly magnify the love of 
I, and to ignore or deny His righteousness and justice. Yet 



5 

these are divine attributes as plainly revealed and as essential. In- 
deed, mercy itself cannot be exercised until God finds a way in which 
He can be just and justify the ungodly. Christ must ' fulfill all right- 
eousness," and suffer the full condemnation for sin, before His gospel 
of pardon and peace can be preached. "God is love," of infinite pity, 
mercy, and grace, but only in Christ, not out of Christ; in the taber- 
nacle and at the cross, not at Sinai nor before the white throne. 
Nature teaches His eternal power and godhead. Its laws are in- 
flexible and pitiless in their execution. He who breaks them must 
suffer the consequences. Fire will not cease to burn when millions 
of moths fly into it. The avalanche does not turn aside because men 
build their chalets in its proper path. No account is made of char- 
acter or motive. The plague slays the self-denying nurses and doc- 
tors, as well as the thieves who would rob the dead and dying. 
In God's dominion over nations are displayed His sovereignty and 
righteous justice. Even in human governments we have only legis- 
lative, judicial, and executive departments, which make, define, and 
administer law. It is true that a pardoning power is given to the 
executive, but only because State law is defective, and in its applica- 
cation the innocent sometimes suffer and the guilty receive too heavy 
a penalty. But in divine law there is no defect, and there can be no 
mistake in its execution. "The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether." In governors we go not look for nor desire 
tenderness or pliability, but we must have wisdom, stability of princi- 
ples, persistency to do rightly and justly without fear or favor. It is 
because the immutable " Lord reigneth, that the earth rejoices and 
the multitude of the isles is glad thereof." 

This doctrine is verified in all history. The flood, the doom of 
Sodom, the plagues of Egypt, the wandering in the wilderness, the 
destruction of the Canaanites, were because the "men had corrupted 
their way" and "the cup of their iniquity was full." Balaam, as he 
took up his parable, and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel, as they uttered 
woes on the nations, foretold their fates as determined by their re- 
bellions against God, or by their mutual outrages, regarded as sins, 
transgressions of God's law and will. He will bless the nations which 
serve Him, but the rebellious will He destroy. History can be inter- 
preted in no other way. If, in modern times, this principle seems not 
to be applicable, it is only because the end is not yet. 

Bearing in mind the conclusion at which we have arrived, let us 
consider one chapter of our national history. We differ from all 
other nations in the fact that, while we are, as to origin and perma- 
nent characteristics, Anglo Saxons, in our veins flows the blood of all 
civilized nations. Our vast portals stand wide open, and immi- 



gration, unexampled in history, flows into them from all quarters. 
We welcome all, except the Chinese, to participation in our vast ter- 
ritories, our free institutions, wonderful opportunities, all rights and 
privileges, in our national life, to complete and perpetual identifica- 
tion. This is not a Siberia to which criminals are transported, nor 
as formally an asylum to which the religiously oppressed and perse- 
cuted may flee. Nor is it a Mecca or a Jerusalem to which multitudes 
and tribes from time to time go up. It is the home of liberty, where 
men dwell in unity as one family, whose plenty attracts all men. 
They come voluntarily in ever increasing nu nbers, each to claim the 
rich inheritance offered to all. Here nationalities soon blend and be- 
come one people, as streams from distant mountains flow into one 
sea. There are, however, two notable exceptions. There are two races 
which had no desire to come intoour midst, and cannot depart, who 
live among us, and are as isolated from each other and from the Amer- 
ican people as they were two hundred years ago— the Indian and the 
Negro. 

The Indians, once the untrammelled possessors of all this 
fair land, have been deceived by baubles, pressed from the coast, step 
by step, beyond the great river, to tne far West, confined within res- 
ervations until these are desired by others, held under military con- 
trol, cheated by Government agents, taught unnatural vices, regarded 
with contempt, treaties and promises to them broken almost as soon 
as made, their remonstrances disregarded, when exasperated by in- 
tolerable wrongs, their retaliations are visited by new humiliation, 
robbery, and decimations. No historian has ventured to recount their 
wrongs. No advocate has attempted to itemize their charges and 
claims against the nation. No .American, through very shame and 
fear, dare read such documents. Yet every deed of violence has been 
faithfully recorded and laid before infinite justice. When '-the Lord 
maketh inquisition for blood He remembereth them. He forgetteth 
not the cry of the humble." "For the Lord God of recompenses 
shall surely requite." 

If we gladly tarn from these sad pages of our national crimes, it 
is only to read another chapter, whose record is still blacker, and 
whose threatenings are more imminent. I have no intention to 
detail the crimes and horrors of the slave trade; nor the possible or 
real wrongs of slavery ; nor to inquire who tempted our nation, or 
whether willingly or unwillingly we received and held Africa's stolen 
children. We have to do with terrible and undisputed facts. In our 
colonial history, and during our national existence, until 1808, we 
' encouraged and legalized the African slave trade, and winked at its 
continuance for manv vears thereafter. Before 1776 we received over 



300,000 Negroes from Africa. When we ceased formally to recognize 
the trade, we held 1,190,000 slaves. At the breaking out of the late 
civil war, these had increased, by importation and births, to 4,000,000. 
And at present there are 8,000,000 Negroes within our borders. It 
does not concern us to inquire as to England's guilt in this matter. 
We legalized, encouraged, and profited by this criminal traffic, and 
have held in involuntary servitude millions of our fellow men. Few, 
if any, will attempt to justify the means by which they have been 
procured, nor to deny that the sin lies at our door. But they are 
here. For 250 years they have been under our laws, civilization, 
religious ordinances and personal direction and influence, and what 
has been the result? Their continued isolation is no wrong to them. 
It is not the result merely of antagonism, prejudice, or difference of 
condition, but of loyalty to race. For reasons, not clearly understood 
by us, God has divided men into races, and through all time He has 
kept these great families distinct. "He hath made of one blood all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." They may 
all worship Him, lecognize brotherhood, adopt each other's languages 
customs, civilization, and occupy together the same territory, but 
they must remain distinct. Amalgamation of the three great races 
is not God's will, and has never received any mark of His approba- 
tion. Loyalty to race, which holds thenn apart, is a divinely implanted 
instinct. Often other means have been used to accomplish the same 
end. The covenant with Abraham, as understood by his seed, sepa- 
rated them from the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians, 
during centuries of the closest associations, and preserves them to- 
day, in all the lands whither they are scattered, a distinct people. 
Europeans in this land quickly lose their identity, and are merged 
into our American nation. But the African race must and ought to 
remain distinct, however they may rise from their present degrada- 
tion, or demonstrate their ability in every department of life. They 
have, as a race, a part to perform in the history of the world, a work 
which God has reserved for them, and which He is beginning to 
unfold. They must remain ?. separate people. 

What has our supervision of 250 years done for this race? 
They have received, after a sort, our language. They have learned 
methods of toil and unquestioning obedience. But physically they are 
not improved. Intellectually there was no advance until the eman- 
cipation, save in a very few individuals, who bv some means obtained 
an education, contrary to our laws; and now there are 73 per cent, of 
the Negroes who can neither re?.d nor write. These 73 per cent 
know little more than their forefathers when stolen from dark 
Africi. It cannot be said that they are incapable. The severity of 



the laws found necessary to hold them in ignorance, their present 
thirst for knowledge, the avidity with which they embrace every 
opportunity, and the results already attained through very meagre 
means, all testify to the contrary. Socially and morally the natives 
of the "dark continent" will compare favorably with them, as to mode 
of living, respect to rights of property, truthfulness, the invio- 
lability of family ties, and as to purity. The vices and crimes usually 
associated with the Negroes pre not peculiar to that race. If they 
characterize them in this land, it is chiefly because of the peculiar 
institution, and methods under which they have been here trained. 
They retained much of their African superstitions, and have received 
very little of our holy religion. There are notable exceptions, but as 
a race these millions are to-day devoid of real Christianity. What 
has our nation done for them ? I speak not of charity, though 
their condition is pitiable and their needs are great. Their past 
sufferings and present degradation do appeal powerfully to every 
heart. Nor do I speak of recompense, though their wrongs be many, 
aggravated and long continued. It may be well to remember that 
we are in their debt, that our present policy is not calculated to 
repay past sufferings and labor, and that there are some injuries for 
which there can be no compensation. But this is not a case for 
personal pity, nor for the, adjustment of accounts between parties. 
Contrary to God's law, we constituted ourselves proprietors of this 
race, and assumed the responsibility of their discipline. And God 
holds us to an account for our self-appointed task. What have we 
done for them ? Very little of good, and much of evil. 

It may be said, we have emancipated them. But the ceasing 
to do evil, does not undo the evil already done. The freeing of 
slaves does not justify the capture, transportation, enforced labor, 
and trials of their forefathers through several generations. Eman- 
cipation was a national act, but it was not from love for the 
slaves, nor desire to do them justice. It was a military necessity 
and a war measure of the North, and regarded as an outrage and 
theft by the South. All persons in this land and in others trem- 
bled at what might be, and probably would be, the terrible results. 
It was made without any preparation of the slaves, and when it 
seemed to be a proclamation of new privations, sufferings and starva- 
tion, to a race already burdened with wrongs and an incentive to new 
crimes. In a moment 4,000,000 slaves, who had been trained to abso- 
lute dependence, and provided for, as if helpless children, with each ne- 
cessity of life, were thrown upon their own resources, without lands, 
shelter, food, money, or even clothe?. No other race has been called 
to meet such a crisis. That crimes innumerable and fearful were 



not committed, that famine and pestilence did not consume them, is 
to the credit of the despised Negro, who so calmly and successfully 
stood the terrible test. Egypt let Israel go free from dire necessity' 
under the lash of the ten plagues. And we. with as little credit, under 
the scourge of war, emancipated the Negroes. 

We have enfranchised them, made them full American citizens, 
and even eligible to office. We need not inquire how far this is 
merely a legal fiction ; if they be really treated as our fellow citizens; 
and if they be permitted to exercise the rights thus granted. It is 
notorious that the ballot was placed in their hands, not for their 
interests, but to accomplish certain political ends. Nationally it 
was a dangerous, a suicidal act, and to this race a grievous injury. 
For rights involve responsibilities — to give sovereignty to those 
who know nothingof government — to place the ballot in the hands of 
those who are absolutely ignorant of the interest of our country, the 
principles of parties, the character of candidates, who cannot even read 
the names of those for whom they vote — to call them to legislate, exe- 
cute and judge— is not only a folly, almost inconceivable in an enlight- 
ened nation, but also the criminal imposing of duties, the attempt to 
perform which, or the neglect of which, would be a sin against the 
nation and against God. 

We are educating them. The duties of citizenship involve the 
claim for education. Adoption gives a child the right to demand 
the schooling necessary to qualify him for his new station. These 
cannot be divorced. Education is a prime necessity and an indis- 
putable right. Since the emancipation $20,000,000 have been con- 
tributed for the education of the freedmen, but what is that among 
so many, and in 25 years? It has brought only a few broken rays into 
their Egyptian darkness. And this sum has been given by indivi- 
duals, by benevolent associations and by the church of God. The 
nation has done nothing for this race as such. It may be said that 
the several States should attend to the education of their own people- 
But emancipation, was a national act, whether right or wrong, and it 
impoverished the Southern States, who cannot be required, in 
addition to this loss, to educate the Negroes as citizens, to enjoy priv- 
ileges pledged by the nation, and which these States do not believe 
should be granted. Pleas and petitions have been offered in their 
behalf. In their extreme poverty they did not ask for lands nor 
food, but they have pressed their prayers and demands for educa- 
tion. And for 25 years our nation has made no more response 
than the dumb idols of Africa. 

Their case seems well nigh desperate. The Israelites in Egypt 
were required to furnish the full tale of bricks, while the necessary 



IO 

straw was withheld. And these freedmen are burdened with new 
responsibilities, to develop their acquired manhood, to rise above 
the imposed degradation of centuries, to establish home;, schools 
and churches, to become worthy citizens, and to perform the special 
work given to their race; while almost everything necessary to this 
Herculean task is denied them. Their environment also is antago- 
nistic, as may be better understood than described. Ishmael and 
Isaac, though circumcised as fellow heirs of the same covenant, could 
not dwell as equals in the same house. Sarah was cruel in her 
method, and Hagar was tearful, but Ishmael could attain unto the 
blessing promised only by being sent forth. And the seed of the 
bond woman here is coming to the conclusion that it cannot work 
out its destiny, and obtain its inheritance in the midst of the seed of 
the free woman. Notwithstanding all legal fictions, national promises 
and moral obligations, these two cannot live together as equals. 
There is no such case in all history. An unrighteous antagonism 
between the races, an ignoble history, an unjust prejudice, as well as 
a growing self-respect, an awakening ambition, and a loyalty to race, 
are causing the blacks to turn from a government indifferent, alike to 
the claims of divine justice, and to their pleas for security in the 
exercise of their rights and tor training for their citizenship. They 
are bethinking themselves of the land of their fathers, of the con- 
tinent ^iven by God to their race, and where their destiny is to be 
accomplished. This conviction is not at present very general. Nor 
could it be expected. Patient endurance of wrong has been highly 
developed by slavery. They have not yet given up faith and hope 
in the Government. Peisonally. they have no fatherland, save this 
in which they are strangers. As a race they can recall no pleasant 
memories of Africa, or of the middle passage over that track, which, 
when the sea gives up her dead, will be in greater commotion than 
any other portion ot the secret keeping deep. They have scarcely 
heard of the Colonization Society, or of Liberia, the Christian 
Republic of Negroes, whose standing among the Nations is acknowl- 
edged, whose fascinating history, fertile lands, free institutions, equal 
opportunities and unclouded future invite them, where all questions of 
personal development and race loyalty and work are finding easy and 
satisfactory solutions. But this knowledge is dawning upon them, and 
will produce its effects. Already a new demand is heard. For sev- 
eral years they have, unprompted by this Society, sent to our 
Government pet tions, yearly increasing in number and more 
numerously signed by colored men, praying to be sent to the land of 
their fathers. Let me interpret them. — We Negroes are in distress 
We are burdened with responsibilities which are unendurable in our 



present condition. Our American citizenship is, by your indifference 
and inaction, a sham. Our personal and race obligations cannot be at- 
tempted. Our past and present wrongs are crying to God for justice. 
The storms of vengeance are gathering* Our presence is endangering 
the peace and integrity of your nation. Our natural increase, at the 
rate of 500 per day, 182,500 a year, doubling our numbers in 20 years, 
is threatening to push you overboard and swamp your Ship of State. 
Our surplus of population is more alarming than the increasing sur- 
plus in your treasury. Already we more than outnumber you in 
several States. Even now there is a black belt in your midst which 
we are filling, and from which, because of us. you are rapidly and 
necessarily departing. With you we cannot form one people, neither 
can our races dwell together on an equality. You do not want us 
here. You will do nothing for our relief in this land. Send us back 
to Africa to do our divinely appointed work. We do not ask for a 
general and enforced exodus of our race, but that you send those 
who are now willing to go, and whose education and religious char- 
acter will not endanger but strengthen the Republic of the lone star, 
which you have founded. Start the emigration by government aid. 
And before long our people will leave you to the undisturbed pos- 
session of this land, and find their own way across the ocean to work 
out the redemption of dark Africa.— Many such petitions were present- 
ed List year. They were referred to appropriate committees which 
reported adversely, and nothing further was done. Oh, my country, 
in this thou art not like Cyrus, King of Persia! Thou art more 
rebellious than Pharoah of Egypt! 

Thus far we have been considering the sovereignty of God, as 
He makes known His law to nations in the essential principles of 
right and wrong. We must, for a few moments, notice His sov- 
ereignty as revealed in the unfolding of His purposes. The separate 
acts of divine providence frequently are utterly inscrutible, and '"His 
ways past finding out." Considered together, they may often sorely 
tiy the faith of an Abraham or a David. At times it is wise to refrain 
from all action "less haply we be found even to fight against God." 
But as we lo->k through the ages there is no obscuritv. There is 
a manifest unity, which is sometimes called the science of history 
There is an order in all events, a definite plan gradually unfolded 
Nations appear upon the stage, perform their parts and pass off 
Some are very transitory. Others, like Israel, are more permanent. 
None can doubt God's design in all Jewish history. We know for 
what purpose Pharo.ih and the Egyptians were raised up. Syria 
Babylon, Macedonia and Rome, had each its own service to perform 
So in more modern times. During the dark ages this continent, for 



manifest reasons, was hidden from the world. When the time drew 
near, and Catholic nations sought new possessions, they were one 
after another turned aside to. the Islands, to Mexico and South 
America. This land was reserved for Protestant Anglo-Saxons, well 
taught in the truth and disciplined by severe persecutions; in order 
that civil and religious liberty might here flourish, far removed from 
the continued strifes of other nations and from the claims of anti- 
christ and of the false prophet; that we might demonstrate the theory 
of free institutions, and national greatness and prosperity, and become 
the missionary of the Gospel to all lands. 

God's designs concerning Africa have long been a hidden mys- 
tery. Situated in the centre of the Eastern hemisphere, within easy 
reach of the highestcivilizations of the world, its immense proportions 
have been long known, and the details of its outlines have been often 
explored. But it has, through all centuries, remained a dark im- 
penetrable continent. Its territory, resources and inhabitants were 
utterly unknown. To all nations and persons God has said, ye shall 
not enter here for any purpose. At its portals, disease and death 
have kept as strict guard, as the angel with the flaming sword at the 
closed gate of Eden. Science, commerce and religion have sailed 
round its borders, have touched here and there on its coasts, but 
have been unable to overleap the barriers. ' It has remained the only 
inaccessible land on the face of the earth, except the probably bleak 
and useless North Pole. Yet like the Congo, whose waters force 
their way for 300 miles into the ocean, there has been a mighty and 
perpetual stream of Africa's enslaved children poured into the sea of 
nations. Whatever may have been man's guilt in this matter, it has 
been permitted, and therefore forms an important part of God's plan 
concerning Africa. God meant it for good, when Joseph's brethren 
sold him. The captivity in Egypt was to train a nation, and in 
Babylon to wean it from heathenism. And for some purpose, God 
has directed this stream to our coast, and has placed these Negroes 
under our tutelage. For 225 years, with no interruption, the school 
term had continued. When suddenly, without any effort on the part 
of the pupils, and against the wishes and efforts of their masters, 
there was a change. To the training in the house and in the field 
were added new courses. They were admitted to every avocation of 
civilized life, to learn all mechanical, commercial and clerical labor. 
They were pressed into schools, primary, graded, academic, scientific, 
collegiate and professional. Religious teachers flocked to instruct 
them in Christianity. They were made citizens, and were called to 
take part in making and administrating laws. Already twenty- 
five years have been alotted to this higher education. And where 



13 

fore ? Can there be a doubt ? If so, it vanishes as we look at Africa. 
A sudden change has also there taken place. That continent so 
long closed has been thrown open to the gaze of the world. Livingstone 
and Stanley, those pioneers of religion and science, have astonished 
all with their glowing reports of its wonderful character and resources. 
Men of learning are eager for research, commerce is fluttering tJ hear 
off the rich produce. European nations have combined to form and 
maintain a free Congo State in the vast interior, and to secure prose- 
perity by series of forrs and bv the navigation of its mighty streams. 
And the church has arisen with new zeal to evangelize the millions of 
these newly-discovered tribes. Still, over every portal may be read 
the divine decree "Africa is for Africans." "No admittance for 
permanent residence, save to the Negro race." "The civilization and 
envangelization of this continent must be by hi r own children." 
Where are the workmen for this arduous and glorious undertaking ? 
In the fields, shops, schools, seminaries and civil offices of America 
8.000,000 of them. They have been, unconsciously, under training for 
250 years for this very service. Where are the means for their trans 
portaiion ? There is an immense baiance due them for past services, 
wrongs and sufferings. The nation is perplexed with the increasing 
surplus in it coffers. Where shall they begin the work ? In Liberia. 
a Christian Negro Republic, already established in Africa, where 
the blacks have demonstrated their ability to govern themselves, to 
establish and maintain educational, religious and governmental insti- 
tutions, to yain the recognition of civilized nations, the respect and 
confidence of heathen tribes, and to begin the redemption ol Afi 
No student of history can doubt that this is the natural and necessarj 
course of events, the unfolding of God's plan. This is God's will 
and commandment to our nation, as plainly made known as was the 
law uttered from Sinai. His purpose cannot be changed. The 
designed course of His government of nations cannot be turned 
aside. He speaks in words which cannot be misunderstood. "Let 
my people go forth, to serve in their own land, in the work which I 
appointed them." To hesitate is rebellion. "Thou shall judge the 
people righteously and govern the nations upon earth." "This is 
the Lord's doing and marvelous in our eyes." 



TREASONS FOR EXISTENCE, » 



THE ANNUAL DISCOURSE 



DELI V ER ED A1 I'H I 



SEVENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING 



OF Nil. 



merican Colonization Society 



HELIj IN IMF. 



First Baptist Church, Washington, D. C 

Sunday Evening, January is. 1889. 

BY 

Rev. Robert M. Luther, D. D. 



FUBL1SHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



WASHINGTON, D. 
COLONIZATION KUILDIN*;, 450 PENN. AVE., N. W 

1889. 



ADDRESS. 



"I will say to the North, Give up; and to the South, Keep not back ; bring 
:n\ sons From far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.'' Isaiah xlii, 6. 



.]/;-. President, Members and Friends of the American Colonization 

Society : 

In accepting your most kind invitation to appear before you this 
evening and address you upon the occasion of the Seventy-Second 
Anniversary of the founding of the Society.permit me say, in .ill true hu- 
mility, that I am profoundly conscious that an honor so great should 
have found a resting place upon a worthier head than mine. 

Who am I that I should stand in the place rilled in former years 
by men, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose? 

And yet, that I may strengthen my heart before entering upon 
my task, may I venture to plead in excuse of my ready acceptance of 
your invitation to address you, that it was because it awakened in me 
memories long silent ; memories of early years, in which those im- 
pressions were formed which longer life has strengthend into con- 
viction, and because of which I did not feel at liberty to refuse a task 
lor which from another standpoint I feel myself wholly incompetent. 

Born almost upon the border land of the free States, I was early 
brought into closest contact with the race for whom i speak to-ni^ht. 
I was cradled in the arms of a black nurse, carried during the te- 
dious invalidism of my earlier years by a faithful old family servant, 
herself the child of one of that sad band, torn from the African jun- 
gles and brought to America among the last of those who were im- 
ported into America before the passing of the law prohibiting the 
slave-trade. From her I heard marvellous tales of the land of her 
fathers. Full of the superstition which is the religion of her race, sin- 
charmed my childish heart with predictions as to my future. 

Strangely enough, in one respect at least, they have been verified — 
perhaps I should say, have wrought out their own fulfilment; for she 
constantly averred that I should be a great wanderer, should see 
many countries, and among them Africa. Who may say how much 
this may have had to do with the wandering career of the homeless 
lad. who after years of residence in Asia, at last did see Africa in- 
deed, but only saw it ; not permitted, as he would gladly have 
done, to do anything by personal labor for its poor people. 



I venture to think that I will strike a responsive chord in the 
hearts of some of this audience when I say that, in mv opinion, those 
best know the African, who have, like myself, learned to know him 
through the contact, in early years, with that fine race of household 
servants, now passing away. 

At least, this much I may say, that I should have been more un- 
fitted than I am to speak to you, had my knowledge of the race not 
begun to be acquired in this way. 

I venture to make this explanation also in my own defence ; be- 
cause something that in truth I may say to-night may seem to be 
severe upon the African, and might be thought to arise either from 
want of personal knowledge or of personal sympathy. 

The memory of the unutterable kindness received in my early 
years would prevent my speaking a word to-night which is not 
prompted by a sincere sympathy with that race, and an earnest de- 
sire to do what one man can to elevate and to Save them. 

But enough of personal explanation. 

It is quite needless to say that in the various discourses delivered 
before this venerable Society, almost every phase of its work and of 
its claims has been set before the American people. If then I venture 
to mark out a somewhat new line of discussion, and that one, the 
most easy of treatment, my apology must be sought in the excellent 
character of the work of my predecessors in this honorable task. 

1 have chosen to ask you to consider with me this question, 
'Why should the American Colonization Society appeal now (any 
ger) to the benevolence of the American public, or to the 
c >rdial support and co-operation of the African race in America? " 

Growing out of this will naturally come the question, "Have we 
a ri-ght to ask from the Government of these United States a more 
rlecided endorsement and substantial aid in prosecuting our enter- 
prize ? 

Is the American Colonization Society, unnecessary in this its 73d 
year of existence ? 

It lias been the fortune of this Society to prove true those words 
ol our Master — "A man's foes shall be they of his own household." 
To pass over the senseless and inconsistent, if not malignant, op- 
position of the members of tin- old Ami Slavery Society, who seemed 
to mark out this Society as the target for their utmost venom, I may 

ak of the wide-spread misconception of our motives by the very 
men for whom, for seventy-two years, we have been giving time, mon- 
ey and life itself. 

Look at the deathless roll inscribed upon the pages of this no- 
ble Society from among tin- Governors of Liberia alone ! Samuel 



A. Crozer, Samuel Bacon, John P. Bankson, Jonathan Winn, Joseph 
Andrus, Jehudi Ashmun, Richard Randall, J. W. Anderson, Thomas 
Buchanan. 

When La tour D'auvergne, the bravest soldier of France, died, it 
was decreed by his grateful country that his name should still stand 
recorded upon the regimental books, and that whenever in the calling 
of the muster roll his name was reached, the oldest and bravest sol- 
dier in the regiment responded " dead on the field of honor." It is 
notone brave man whose name stands recorded here. Dare I call the 
muster roll of heroes ? 

And these were wdiite men, who died for Africans. 

Can we not to-day appeal to our brethren of the Negro race and 
say in the words of our Master, "Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay clown his life for his friends?" 

If a word of mine reaching the ear of the men for whom we labor 
can beget in them confidence in our motives and assurance of our love, 
I shall count myself most happy in appearing as the apologist for this 
honored Society. 

But again, it so happens that in the minds of the gteat body of 
the American public there is an undefined impression, that this Socie- 
ty has finished its work; that in some way it was so. assoi 
with slavery, that when that perished it disappeared. 

I have been pained beyond measure to hear from those to whom 
I have appealed for aid for our cause, the reply: "Why I t!.< 
that Society was defunct." 

Well, all I have to say, is that it is an exceedingly lively coi 

Dead? No! Mr. President and brethren, it cannot die while its 
work is yet undone. So long as there is in America one man of Negro 
blood who groans under the stigma of his birth ; so long as there is one 
who finds himself trammelled by the inevitable social conditions which 
have grown into maturity of strength under the necessary relations 
of our American life — so long as there is one voice lifted to foster 
race antagonisms or to beget sectional hatred; above all, so long as 
Africa can truthfully be called the " Dark Continent." and its fruitful 
soil be desolated by the relentless cruelty of Mohammedanism or the 
ghastly sorrows of degraded Fetichism — so long shall the mission of 
the American Colonization Society exist. 

When these pass — then it too may pass, and passing, find its 
requiem swelling upward from sixty millions of regenerated Afri- 
cans — the gentle minor cadences of its parting hymn borne with the 
indescribable sweetness of Negro voices, until it mingles with the 
anthems of a redeemed humanity around the throne of God and the 
Lamb. 



6 



Never was its mission more pertinent and imperative than now. 
The war settled many things, but it did not settle the condition 
of the African in America. It did give him the doubtful right of 
suffrage, a not unmixed boon to either black or white. 

But what did it define as to his position ? What did it accom- 
plish for his uplifting? 

It was a grand boon that was given him — that of freedom : but 
would to God that the gift had not ceased there. Would that this 
great nation had also taken to its heart the people thus enfranchised. 
Instead of turning them adrift to live or die— would that the wrongs 
of a century had been righted by giving to the African in America 
the chance to start in the world with equal privileges and opportuni- 
ties with his white competitor. 

It is that for which this Society pleads, and it is on that ground 
that it appeals to your aid and help to-night. 

It is right and fitting, then, that I should set before this audience 
a few of the reasons why the American Colonization Society has still 
a claim upon the sympathies and benevolence of the American public. 
And first, let me say, that this Society claims the support and 
assistance of all Christians because, in its origin, it was so manifestly 
called of God and appointed to its work. It was the crystallization 
of unselfishnesss. It was the triumph of Christianity. For mark you. 
it was founded without any hope of profit, and was a work of sacrifice 
for an alien race, by men who had nothing to expect in return. 

From its infancy it was the child of Providence. Every step ot 
its work has indicated this. 

The man who would be on God's side, must cast in his lot with us 

Let me ask you to look for a few moments at the map of Africa, 

that you may see with what singular judgment, guided by superior 

wisdom, the founders of the Colonization Society chose the location 

of their holy experiment. 

A coast line easy of access at any part— not a dangerous reef or 
shoal on its entire length —seldom, if ever, visited by the fearful tor- 
nados which ravage the coast to the north and to the south. A 
belt of lowlands— much narower than that on the Gaboon district 
or St. Paul de Loanda. 

A country rising almost immediately from the coast by swelling 
hills, not by precipitous mountains— traversed by passes of gentle 
grade— each of them capable of being the line of future railways. 

A c )untry which at twenty miles from the sea by almost imper- 
ceptible gradations has already attained an elevation of one thousand 
f( et tar above the malaria of the lowlands. 

A climate notably free from the worst type of African fevers— so 



genial, in fact, that even a white man might live there with fewer 
precautions than our missionaries in the Congo valley are compelled 
to take. 

The native population sparse, it is true, but of a manly type, 
belonging to the same races which made it necessary for England to 
send her choicest troops and bravest general to subdue their brethren 
lying immediately to the southward. England does not throw away 
her honors, and it was for no slight reason that Sir Garnet Wolse- 
ly was raised to the peerage and decorated, for having, with all the 
resources of England at his back, secured a temporary and unstable 
peace with men like these in Ashantee. 

A region which was aptly described to me by the hero missionary 
and explorer, Dr. Sims, as the "Garden of Africa"; teeming with the 
choicest productions of tropical lands — the native home of the i offe< 
plant — which grows wild in its untouched jungles with a luxuriance 
found elsewhere only in the carefully cultured gardens of Brazil. 

I may not speak of the singular series of Divine providences by 
which this region came to be the chosen spot for this holy experiment. 
The tale is a twice told one. 

I am speaking to a Washington audience— an audience in which 
I see men with gray hair whose memory must run back to that time- 
when a man counted for more by reason of his manhood than he dues 
in these days of Syndicates and Trusts and Combines, They must 
recall the graceful form and beautiful face of the young, enthusiastic 
Stockton, and they must remember that voice, as sweet and gentle 
and harmonious as the voice of a woman, yet giving indication ever 
and anon of those tones which could hail the men on the topsail yard 
in a gale of wind — the voice that rung clear and unmistakable in its 
decision in that strange scene, when amid the darkness of the gather- 
ing storm, and the muttering of the thunder, the first treaty was 
signed, and the purchase of the first strip of territory was completed. 

Liberia waits for such a voice now. With her enemies pressing 
upon her, menaced by the grasping greed of English covetousness — 
she wait to hear the voice which will speak peace amid the thunder 
of warring elements. 

Shall it come from America ? 

But again, this Society first recognized, and has always most con- 
stantly set before the American people, the grave nature of the race 
problem arising from the presence of the African in America. 

Long before a tithe — yea, a hundredth of our eminent Statesmen 
dreamed of the vast and complicated problem which confronts us to- 
day, this Society, by its published utterances, pointed out the menace 



to our social order arising from the presence of this swarming popu- 
lation, hostile in feeling and character to our institutions. 

It was because of their prophetic insight and their recognition of 
the dangers that menace us to-day that men of such entirely oppo- 
site and conflicting shades of political thought as Henry Clay and 
Daniel Webster, Samuel J. Mills and John Randolph of Roanoke, 
placed their names upon the original list of members — the -fifty 
men— in 1816. It has had five Presidents. Listen as I read their 
names, and you elder men who remember your country's political 
history, mark how each name is a type of some one of the complex 
principles of our Republic : Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, James Madison, Henry Clay, and clarum etvenerabilenomen, 
fohn H. B. Latrobe; varied in their opinions as the hues of the Iris — 
one in the white light of their devotion to God and humanity. What 
welded these men into one, making them like the fibre of a Damas- 
cus blade, woven together in a beautiful harmony of diversity? The 
high and loyal cavalier, the impetuous Celt, the descendant of Mora- 
vian missionaries, Why, it is as if the races which have made 
history worth the reading had consecrated their choicest repre- 
sentatives to the work of saving that rare which for forty centuries 
lias had no history save that written in tears and blood. 

I may not enter in the brief space which your courtesy will allow 
me upon a discussion of the question of the races in America. 

It is a problem pregnant with results — possibly even with dan- 

to the perpetuity of our institutions. 

One thing is certain, the day has conic when this question can no 
longer be ignored. I have full faith in the flexibility and adjusting 
power of our national life. Its elasticity lias rendered harmless many 
a blow which would otherwise have wrecked the nation. 

But in one point at least it seems to fail. The social condition 
of the Negro to-day is no whit different from what it was twenty-fiv< 
years ago. He is no nearer absorption into the body of the nation 
He stands apart now as he did then, no nearer to us — farther off even 
in some respects than he was when the Civil War set him free. 

Now this Society recognizes this fact. It deplores it, but it does 
not stand wailing and wringing its hands in an impotent spasm of 
benevolent sympathy. It speaks no uncertain mumblings of helpless 
condolence. It says to him. " Be a man ! and we will help you to 
manhood. If you cannot face your obstacles here, seek another clime 
where you will not have these obstacles to contend with. Do not 
how your head like a bulrush in Egypt, seek the Canaan of your 
inheritance — the land of your fathers— a land where you can giv< 
vent to the powers which have been crushed and repressed by youi 



9 

social condition here. And we will help you to all this we will stand 
as your supporters until yon can go alone — we will give you the 
opportunity which God meant you should have, but which you 
cann< it have here." 

And this leads naturally to the third ground upon which this 
Society makes good its claim to the support of all men ; vi/. : because 
its design is in the line of recognition of tin- true ability of the African 
race. It has recognized and promulgated that policy which is for the 
best interest of the African in America and in his native land. 

It has been said that the African cannot colonize 1 Well, hi 
succeeded in colonizing America pretty thoroughly- and u 
mendously adverse circumstances. 

If the Pilgrim Fathers had entered upon their colonization 
schemes under such obstacles, history would have been written dif- 
ferently. 

But it is said— you have ben seventy years in Liberia and the 
experiment does not seem to succeed. My reply is : It is too 
i i pronounce this experiment a failure. 

England h^s an empire in India comprising 260 millions oi ->ouls. 
Its foundations were laid by a trading corporation— the East India 
Company of merchant adventurers. It has taken two cenl 
has cost not less than two hundred thousand lives to found thai 
empire. 

Is it not too soon to decide authoritatively as to the su 
this experiment, not of a corporation greed) for gain, but of a 1 
pany of men whose motto has always been in fact. "Ad majoram Dei 
gloriam." 

Give us time — time to try what tin- coming rue will b< in 
time to try the experiment upon a grand scale; to so enlist tin- 
American people in the plan and labors of this Society that we ma) 
have adequate means at our disposal for our work. 

Again, this Society has vindicated its claim to existence 
it has prophetically indicated the grand possibilities of that wo 
ful Continent which is the scene of its operations. 

Unceasingly, has it for seventy years called the attention oi the 
world to the true character of the so-called 'hark Continent 

Victor IIu2;<> has said that Africa is the Continent of the 20th 
century: but this Society would have made it the Continent of the 
19th century if its voice had been heeded by America. 

When its labors began, Africa was regarded as the refuse heap of 
creation. Since the daysof Portuguese explorations, no geographer 
had attempted to solve its mysteries. On the map of the world it 
stood with a few unimportant names of doubtful authenticity printed 



10 

upon its coast line, and with a vast interior, unmarked by a single 
geographical character, save that it had in large letters in one place 
" The Great Desert" and in another " Unexplored Region." Mightv 
mountain ranges — magnificent lakes — grandly sweeping rivers which 
now diversify the chart, not one of them was known nor so much as 
the possibility of its existence suspected. 

With singular prophetic insight, the first published utterances of 
this Society suggested the possibility of " making the wilderness and 
the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to blossom as the rose." 
With no guide but their firm faith, the founders of this Society be- 
lieved that Africa was rich in choicest productions — that it offered 
a field for commercial enterprises of extensive scope — that it would be 
found on better acquaintance less desolate and barren than was sup- 
posed. 

Very moderate utterances these, but of what significance in the 
light of events during; the past ten years ? To the redemption of at 
least a portion of this Continent, American enterprise was invited 
and the co-operation of the Government of the United States solic- 
ited. 

To-day Africa swarms with traders, and commercial Companie 
of colossal proportions are striving for its control. Its lakes and riv- 
ers are the highways of trade. Railways are piercing it in various 
directions and the Continent throbs with a new life. 

This Society would have had this mighty work done by America, 
through her sable sons of African descent — rather than by European 
adventurers. 

Never was a grander offer made to any generation or to any race. 
Shame to us, as Americans, that in the rush and whirl of this Eth- 
nic and Geographic convulsion -we have allowed ourselves to be 
quiet lookers on instead of active participants. In this .great game 
of the nations we have been outplayed. 

Glance for a few moments at the situation of affairs in Africa to- 
day. Of the thirty-four millions of square miles in the Continent only 
four millions remain unappropriated by some European or Asiatic 
Power, hostile in its genius to the best interests of the African people. 
On the north lie the unbroken colonies of Arabic or other Moham- 
medan possessions previous to 1875. We were frequently told b) 
apparently reliable authorities that Mohammedanism is at a stand 
still. The prevalent opinion was that as a religion it was in its deca- 
dence if not indeed moribund. The disastrous war in the Soudan — 
the overwhelming successes of the Mahdi — the fall of Khartoum and 
the shameful sacrifice of the heroic Gordon awakened all Europe 
with a rude shock. England, defeated and humiliated, has virtually 



11 

retired from the contest, beaten in numberless fights by nun of true 
Negro blood, led by native generals. The sole armed camp yet re- 
tained, (at Suakim) seems to be held by the English merely by suf- 
ferance. As to any forward advance in the Soudan, that we have 
ceased to expect— almost to hope for. Meanwhile the attention ol 
European nations, notably England and Germany, seems to be di- 
rected toward making a solid barrier across the Equatorial regions 
by which the farther advance southward of the Mohammedan tribes 
may be arrested. 

For this purpose the large blocks of territory from the West coasl 
— the Gaboon and the Congo lowlands, to the East coast. Zanzibar 
district — clear across the Continent, reaching from ro° North latitude 
to 1 5° South latitude have been practically annexed by the combined 
action of Germany, France and England. 

But you will say. what of the Congo Free State ? Well, it is to be 
feared, from later developments, that the word Free in this high 
sounding title applies rather to the white foreigner than to the nath e 
African, judged by the history of French domination in Algiers. 
German rule in the Pacific and English dominion in India, I ask 
you, as free American citizens, what may we expect from the preva- 
lence of European political ideas in Africa? 1 

What idea has any one of these Governments to present which 
can for a moment promise help or hope to theNegro? Wh.u single 
feature in the genius of any one of these Governments promises any 
uplifting of the race into true freedom, or any hope of the develop- 
ment of self-government. It is too late to ask by what light these 
nations assumed control over the fair territories embraced in their gi- 
gantic schemes. The deed is done. Meanwhile, the one nation 
which stands for Freedom, which presents in the character of its Gov- 
ernment the sole hope of the race — which has vindicated its right to 
exist and justified its claims to the admiration of humanity, stands — 
pausing— shall I say ? Nay — scarcely that. To pause implies a con- 
templation of the situation. It implies that we are facing the obsta- 
cles, debating the problem and determining upon action. But it would 
be too much to say that. To the great miss of our people Africa is 
not only an unknown country, but an absolutely non-existent land. 

May heaven avert the omen ! May God forbid that in some un- 
thought of day we should be awakened by dire calamities to the real- 
ization of the fact that America's opportunity has gone by. 

As I contemplate the situation, I seem Lo hear ringing through 
the silent night the accents of that most mournful— that destiny-full 
exclamation of the servant of God to Esther the Queen : "If thou at 
this time altogether hold thy peace— then shall enlargement and de- 



12 

liverance arise from some other source — but thou and thy father's 
house shalt be destroyed !" 

Well for us if we shall awake ! Well for us if we may escape hear- 
ing those words of even more bitter import, " If thou hadst known. 
even thou at least in this thy day the things that make for thy peace. 
But now they are hidden from thine eyes." 

Yet alas! as I speak I catch the murmur of thousands— swelling- 
ever deeper and yet more deep. Its burden is " What shall my por- 
tion be of the public spoil." The deep diapason of the cry "What are 
my chances for a place in the Cabinet is supplemented by the inhar- 
monious treble of "/am the "man forCollector of the port of Babylon,' 
and shrill amid the cadences comes in quavering falsetto, " 1 must 
have the post office at Smith's Cross Roads." 

What chance to make our voice heard for Africa and the African 
amid this discord ? 

Yet for this Society, honorable and venerable, there is nought but 
the word of the Lord, " Cry aloud and spare not! Lift up thy voice 
like a trumpet and shew my people their transgression and the house 
of Jacob their sin." We are not to pause because we have not yet 
reached the popular ear. It should have been the gladly welcomed 
task of a free nation to transplant its God-given ideas to another 
Continent — to have carried the genius of free institutions to another 
quarter of the globe — to add a new strain to the anthem of humanity. 

But that which should have been the task of the nation, has been 

left to the hands of a single society ;— to a band of thoughtful, gentle. 

perhaps impracticable men, who are too much in earnest to debate 

possibilities, too full of faith in an over-ruling Providence to count 

hi cost, 

What then ! Thank God " it is not with Thee to save by the 
many or by the few." Lamps, pitchers and trumpets were most peace- 
ful and ineffective weapons — yet they wrought deliverance for Israel 
because they set in the host of the Midianites, every man's sword 
.1 1 11st his fellow. 

But again. This Society makes good its rlai.ni to existence and 

als to you as Christians especially for jour support because it is 
so eminently Missionary in its scope and purpose. 

One of the objects of this organization — as set forth in its Consti- 
tution — " is to promote there (in Africa) the extension of Christianity 
ml Civilization." 

And how nobly is it doing this 

What more practical and sensible scheme than that proposed in 
the working plan of this Society can be devised ; viz., to send to Africa 
Christian men who, while supporting themselves, shall preach by the 



13 

power of a daily Christian life, as well as by precept, the truths ol 

Christianity. 

Thank God ! the men are ready to go. 

Will you as Christians, ( I appeal to those not members of tin- 
Society,) will you give them the chance to go ? The calls are o iming 
to us with increasing urgen :yand frequency. Let me read one lett< 

San Diego, California, Jan. sth, 1889. 
bear Sir : 

My intention is to organize a company with the vii rig to Africa. I 

have one family in this place and others in Texas A >oon as we hive compl 
an organization I will putmyself in communication with you. 

I an; a Minister ofthe Gospel in the A. M. E- ('lunch, also a shoem 
by trade, a teacher of music in all its branches in theory and practice, and a 
piano and organ-timer and repairer. 

Four years ago I composed a Sabbath School music book called the "1 
lasting Joy," a copy of which 1 send you by this mail. I am from the famous 
school of "Leipsic," Germany. 

I am a teacher of Languages, German, French, Spanish and Latin. I have 
followed school teaching for twenty years. I had the honor of being retaine 
the United States Circuit Court at Waco, Texas, as interpreter of the Spanish 
language. I refer you to all the bishops and general officers of the A. M. E 
Church, who are well acquainted with me, some of them from boyhood. I have 
pastored in Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and now in California. I beg you no 
think of me as being egotistic, as the simule motive impelling me to this Statement 
is merely to let you know who and what I am. 

Hoping this will be received in the spirit in which it is written, I remain 
yours for the cause, 

J. W. Randolph. 

Will you aid this man and hundreds of his brethren ? America 
can ill spare such men, but Africa needs them more. Let us bid them 
God-speed and send them on their Apostolic mission. 

Such are a few reasons why we appeal to you for your support 

These are a few of the reasons for our existence. 

And now in closing, let me ask you to consider you* duty. 

1. Help us with your prayers Make yourselves familiar with 
the working of this Society. 

2 Help us with your alms. 

3d. Stand by us ascitizens, should we appeal to the general Gov- 
ernment for aid in carrying out our great plan. 

In the near future, we shall appeal to the Government of these 
l T nited States to aid in the opening of the many avenues of trade on 
the west coast of Africa, Give us your support in this appeal. 

And now Brethren of the Colonization Society, a parting word 



14 

What is before us as a Society, in the future, no man can tell. 

We may fail at last, as men count failure. It may be writ- 
ten in history that this honored Society, after a century of patient 
effort and endurance, baffled and wearied — its ranks thinned by death 
— its standard bearers called from the conflict to their reward — its 
designs frustrated by the greed of men— its principles forgotten in 
the mad rush for wealth and power, at last gave up its life. 

But there is another scene. 

•And I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it, from 
whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no 
place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." 

In that awful hour when, in the fierce light shining from the 
great white throne, the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed; when 
the mists which veiled and distorted human actions shall have 
been dissipated, when the standard of human judgment shall give 
place to the unutterably just decision of the Judge of all the 
earth — in that hour may it be for me, may it be lor you, to lift our 
heads unshrinkingly and unappalled — in that moment of supreme 
thought, conscious of this — that we stood for Christ and humanityamid 
the conflict of this lower world— that we faltered not for an instant — 
that we gave back not a single step; that we counted notour lives 
dear unto us, but freely spent our all in giving life and light to the 
Continent of darkness and death; in lifting up a scarred and blasted 
humanity until it could catch a glimpse of the fair face of the world's 
Christ. 

Then as the Eternal Day breaks and the shadows flee away. 
amid the awful silence of the waiting nations shall thrill the accents 
of the Master: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
'if these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me ! " 



THE CONDITION OF LIBERIA. 

The following letter has been received at the office of the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society from the Rev. Ezekiel E. Smith, united 
States Minister Resident at Liberia. 

Legation of the United States. 
Monrovia, December 10, 1888. 

Dear Sir: In order to acquaint myself with the condition of the people of 
Liberia. I have, during the live months that I resided here, closely observed and 
studied their customs and institutions. I have had the pleasure to meet and con- 
verge with, at different times, the President, the members of his cabinet, the chief 
justice of the supreme court, the judges and officers of the lower courts, the dif" 

ill members of the two branches of the national Legislature, the pastors of 
many of the churches of the various denominations of the Republic, the faculty of 
the College and leading educators generally, the merchants, traders, farmers and 



15 

mechanics, all of whom seem hopeful and speak encouragingly of the future • I 

Liberia. 

But aside from this class of evidence— testimony of interested parties, one 
might say — I cheerfully state, in addition thereto, what lias passed under my own 
observation. I have visited many of the churches and schools here, and on every 
occasion I have been made to rejoice at beholding the skill and ability which are 

being put forth through these channels to disseminate and inculcate those essen 
tiai requisites of head ami heart so n< i e irj to make a man, a people and 
tio'i useful and powerful I have visited, too, the courts of justice, which I found 
presided over by men of ability, with the attendance of an array of able attorneys, 
The business of the courts seem to be dispatched with rapidity and equity. I have 
had the pleasure also to visit the two branches of ■ he Legislature, each of which 

assemblies transacts its business in such a way as to impress a looker on with the 
fact that its members are indeed interested in the weal of the country and anxious 
to devise such measures as will inure to the prosperitj ol its citizens. 

I have visited at different times, various settlement St. Paul'sriver, 

where the hand of industry has been diligently at work, and the once dense foi 
ests have been, and are being, converted into delightful fauns. If a thing ol 
beauty is a joy forever, certainly must on, ndless when once he beholds 

the beautiful coffee farms along the St. Paul's river. Many of the owners of these 
farms live comfortably in brick houses, which are furnished with taste. So far as 
my observations have gone, the citi/ens are struggling manfully to build up a 
prosperous people and a grand country. When I behold the glorious results 
which have been achieved here, 1 am inspired to believe that there is abundant 
hope for the future of Liberia. I have rarely heard a sermon or an address since 
reaching this city in which there was no! an urgent appeal for greater effort 
put forth to bring in the native and practically incorporate him in the body politic. 

I have just returned from Clay-Ashland, a very prosperous settlement some 
15 miles up the St. Paul'sriver. There was indeed a vasl gathering ofpeop 
occasion being the annual meeting of the Providence Haptist Association. There 
were delivered during the session several able and instructive sermons and ad 
dresses. Rev. I >r. E. W. Blyden delivered a very tine address on Saturday. I 
inst., to a large and appreciative audience. The address was replete with food 
for thought. On Sabbath morning Rev. R. Ik Richardson, the able principal ol 
the Ricks Institute, preached to a large audience an eloquent and forceful set 
mon, in which he clearly pointed out the true line upon which the Afro-A 
can must move in order to do effective work among the natives. Rev. J. |. 
Cheeseman preached in the afternoon. Such pertinent discourses delivered al 
times so opportune must surely bear fruit, both these men were born here ol 
American parents. 

The Legislature is in session, also the quarterly court, hence the representa- 
tive men of the nation are in the city. The Presbytery of West Africa will con- 
vene here on the 12th inst. 

Monrovia contains some 4,000 inhabitants, a College building, brick, and 
brick seminary. The State House and Executive mansioi utiful stone 

buildings. There are four large brick church edifices, Baptist, Methodist, I 
byterian and Episcopalian. The residences are generally brick two story build- 
ings. Many of them are not only comfortably but elegantly furnished. 

My interest in Liberia and my hopes for a great Negro Republic increases is I 
grow familiar with the country and its institutions. 

With sentiments of high esteem, 1 am, your obedient servant. 

EZKKIEL E. Smith. 



THE AFRICAN PROBLEM, 



THE METHOD OF ITS SOLUTION. 



The Annual Discourse Delivered at the Seventy 
third Anniversary of the American Coloniza- 
tion Society, in the Church of the Covenant, 
Washington, D. C, January 19, 1S90, 



EDWARD W. BLYDEN, LL. D. 



Published by Reojjest. 



washing ton : 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 

1 8 90. 



THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 



Acts xvi. !>. 

I am seriously impressed with ;i sense of the responsi- 
bility of m\ position to-night. I stand in the presence of 
the representatives of thai great organization which seems 
first iif all the associations in this country to have distinctly 
recognized the band of God in the history of the Negro 
race in America to have caught something of the mean- 
ing of the Divine purpose in permitting their exile to and 
bondage in this land. I stand also in the presence of what, 
tor the time being at least, must be considered the fore- 
most congregation of the land the religious home of the 
President of the United States. There are present, also, 
I learn, on this occasion, some of the statesmen and law- 
makers of the land. 

AI \ position, then, is one of honor as well as of respon- 
sibility, and the message I have to deliver, I venture to 
think, concerns direct! j or indirect I \ the whole human race. 
Icome from that ancient country, the home of one of the 
great original races, occupied by the descendants of one 
of the three sons to whom, according to Biblical history, 
the whole world was assigned — a country which is now 
engaging the active attention of all I'm rope. I come, also, 
from the ancestral home of at least live millions in this 
land. Two hundred millions of people have sent me on 
an errand of invitation to their blood relations here. 
Their cry is, " ( lome over and help us."' And I find among 
hundreds of thousands of the invited an eager and eiithu- 



siastic response. They tell me to wave the answer across 
the deep to the anxious and expectant hearts, which, (lur- 
ing the long and weary night of separation, have been con- 
stantly watching and praying for the return — to the Rachels 
weeping for their children, and refusing to be comforted 
because they are not — they tell me, "Wave the answer 
back to our brethren to hold the fort for we are coming.'" 
They have for the last seventy years been returning through 
the agency of the Society whose anniversary we celebrate 
to-night. Some have gone every year during that period, 
but they have been few compared to the vast necessity. 
They have gone as they have been able to go, and are mak- 
ing an impression for good upon that continent. My sub- 
ject to-nightwill be, The African Problem and the Method 
of its Solution. 

This is no new problem. It is nearly as old as recorded 
history. It has interested thinking men in Europe and 
Asia in all ages. The imagination of the ancients peopled 
the interior of that country with a race of beings shut out 
from and needing no intercourse with the rest of mankind — 
lifted by their purity and simplicity of character above 
the necessity of intercourse with other mortals — leading 
a blameless and protracted existence and producing in 
their sequestered, beautiful, and fertile home, from which 
flowed the wonderful Nile, the food of the Gods. Not 
milk and honey but nectar and ambrosia were supposed to 
abound there. The Greeks especially had very high con- 
ceptions of the sanctity and spirituality of the interior 
Africans. The greatest of their poets picture the Gods 
as vacating Olympus every year and proceeding to Ethio- 
pia to lie feasted by its inhabitants. Indeed, the religion 
of sonic portion of Greece is supposed to have been in- 
troduced from Africa. But Leaving the region of my- 
thology, we know that the three highest religions known 



to mankind — if they had not their origin in Africa were 
domiciled there in the days of their feeble beginnings, 
Judaism, Christianity, and Moham danism. 

A sacred mystery bung over thai continent, and man] 
were the aspirations of philosophers and poets for some 
definite 1 knowledge of what was beyond the narrow fringe 
they saw. Julius Caesar, fascinated while listening to a 
tale of the Nile, lost the vision of military glory. The 
philosopher overcame the soldier and he declared himself 
ready to abandon for a time the alluring fields of poli- 
tics in order to trace out the sources of thai mysterious 
river which gave to mankind Egypi with her magnificent 
conceptions and splendid achievements. 

The mystery still remains. The problem continues un- 
solved. The conquering races of the world stand perplexed 
and worried before the difficulties which beset their enter- 
prise of reducing that continent to subjection. They have 
overcome the whole of the Western Hemisphere. From 
Behring Straits to Cape Horn America has submitted to 
their sway. The native races have almost disappeared 
from the mainland and the islands of the se;i. Europe 
has extended her conquests to Australia, New Zealand, and 
the Archipelagos of the Pacific. But, for hundreds of 
years, their ships have passed by those tempting regions, 
where "Afric's sunny fountains roll down their golden 
sands," and though touching at different points on the 
coast, they have been able to acquire no extensive foot- 
hold in that country. Notwithstanding the reports we re- 
ceive on every breeze that blows from the Mast, of vast 
" spheres of influence " and Large European possessions, 
the points actually occupied by while men in the boundless 
equatorial regions of that immense continent may be accu- 
rately represented on the map only by microscopic dots. T 
wish that the announcements we receive from time to time 



6 

with such ;i flourish of trumpets, that a genuine civilization 
is 1 icing carried into the heart of the Dark Continent, were 
true But the fact is, that the bulk of Central Africa is 
being rapidly subjected to Mohammedanism. That system 
will soon be — or rather is now — knitting together the con- 
querors and the conquered into a harmonious whole ; and 
unless Europe gets a thorough understanding of the situ- 
ation, the gates of missionary enterprise will be closed ; 
because, from all we can learn of the proceedings of some, 
especially in East Africa, the industrial regime is being 
stamped out to foster the militant. The current number 
of the Fortnightly, near the close of an interesting article 
on "Stanley's Expedition," has this striking sentence: 
" Stanley has triumphed, but Central Africa is darker than 
ever ! 

It would appear that the world outside of Africa lias 
not yet stopped to consider the peculiar conditions which 
lift that continent out of the range of the ordinary agencies 
by which Europe has been able to occupy other countries 
and subjugate or exterminate their inhabitants. 

They have not stopped to ponder the providential les- 
sons on this subject scattered through the pages of history, 
both past and contemporary. 

First. Let us take the most obyious lesson as indicated 
in the climatic conditions. Perhaps in no country in the 
world is if so necessary (as in Africa) that the stranger or 
new comer should possess the mens sana in corpore sano — 
the sound mind in sound bod \ ; for the climate is most 
searching, bringing to the surface any and every Latent 
physical or mental defect, If a man has any chronic or 
hereditary disease it is sure to be developed, and if wrong 
medical treatment is applied it is very apt to be exaggerated 
mid often to prove fatal to the patient. And as with the 
body so with the mind. Persons of weak minds, either 



inherited or brought on by excessive mental application 
or troubles of any kind, are almost sure to develop an im- 
patience or irritability j to the surprise and annoyance of 
their friends who knew them at home. The Negro immi- 
grant from a temperate region sometimes suffers from these 
climatic inconveniences, only in his case, after a brief pro- 
cess of acclimatization, he becomes himself again, while 
the white man never regains his soundness in that climate, 
and can retain his mental equilibrium only by periodical 
visits to his native climate. The regulation of the British 
Government for West Africa is that their officials are 
allowed six months' leave of absence to return to Europe 
after fifteen month's residence at Sierra Leone and twelve 
months on the Gold Coast or Lagos ; and for every three 
days during which they are kept on the coast after the 
time for their leave arrives, they are allowed one day in 
Europe. The neglect of this regulation is often attended 
with most serious consequences. 

Second. When we come into the moral and intellectual 
world it would seem as if the Almighty several times at- 
tempted to introduce the foreigner and a foreign civiliza- 
tion into Africa and then changed his purpose. The 
Scriptures seem to warrant the idea that in some way in- 
explicable to us, and incompatible with our conception of 
the character of the Sovereign of the Universe, the un- 
changeable Being sometimes reverses His apparent plans. 
We read that, " it repented God," &c. For thousands of 
years the northeastern portion of Africa witnessed a won- 
derful development of civilization. The arts and sciences 
flourished in Egypt for generations, and that country was 
the centre of almost universal influence ; but there was no 
effect produced upon the interior of Africa. So North 
Africa became the seat of a great military and commercial 
power which flourished for 700 years. After this the Ilo- 



man Catholic Church constructed a mighty influence in 
the same region, but the interior of the continent received 
no impression from it. 

In the fifteenth century the Congo country, of which we 
now hear so much, was the scene of extensive operations 
of the Roman Catholic Church. Just a little before the 
discover} 7 of America thousands of the natives of the Congo, 
including the most influential families, were baptized by 
Catholic missionaries ; and the Portuguese, for a hundred 
years, devoted themselves to the work of African evangel- 
ization and exploration. It would appear that they knew 
just as much of interior Africa as is known now 7 after the 
great exploits of Speke and Grant and Livingstone, Baker 
and Cameron and Stanley. It is said that there is a map 
in the Vatican, three hundred years old, which gives all 
the general physical relief and the river and lake systems 
of Africa with more or less accuracy; but the Aral) geog- 
raphers of a century before had described the mountain 
system, the great lakes, and the course of the Nile. 

Just about the time that Portugal was on the way to 
establish ;i great empire on that continent, based upon the 
religious system of Rome, America was discovered, and, 
instead of the ( 'ongo, the Amazon became the seat of Port- 
uguese power. Neither Egyptian, Carthaginian, Persian, 
or Roman influence was allowed to establish itself on that 
continent. It would seem that in the providential purpose 
do solution of the African problem was to come from alien 
sources. Africans were not doomed to share the fate of 
some other dark races who have come in contact with the 
aggressive European. Europe was diverted to the Western 
Hemisphere. The energies of thai conquering race, it was 
decreed, should be spent in building up a home for them- 
selves on this side. Africa followed in chains. 



The Negro race was to be preserved for a special and 
important work in the future. Of the precise nature of 
that work no one can form any definite conception. It is 
probable that if foreigD races had been allowed to enter 
their country they would have been destroyed. So they 
were brought over to be helpers in this country and at 
the same time to be preserved. It was not the first time 
in the history of the world that a people have been pre- 
served by subjection to another people. We know that 
God promised Abraham that his seed should inherit the 
land of Canaan; but when He saw that in their numer- 
ically weak condition they would have been destroyed in 
conflicts with the indigenous inhabitants, he took them 
down to Egypt and kept them there in bondage four hun- 
dred years that they might be fitted, both by discipline 
and numerical increase, for the work that would devolve 
upon them. Slaveiy would seem to be a strange school 
in which to preserve a people ; but God has a way of 
salting as well as purifying by fire. 

The Europeans, w r ho were fleeing from their own coun- 
try in search of wider areas of freedom and larger scope 
for development, found here an aboriginal race unable to 
co-operate with them in the labors required for the con- 
struction of the material framework of the new civiliza- 
tion. The Indians would not work, and they have suffered 
the consequences of that indisposition. They have passed 
away. To take their place as accessories in the work to 
be done God suffered the African to be brought hither, 
who could work and would work, and could endure the 
climatic conditions of a new southern country, which Eu- 
ropeans could not. Two currents set across the Atlantic 
towards the west for nigh three hundred years — the one 
from Europe, the other from Africa. The one from Africa 
had a crimson color. From that stream of human beings 



10 

millions fell victims to the cruelties of the middle passage, 
and otherwise suffered from the brutal instincts of their 
kidnappers and enslavers. I do not know whether Africa 
has been invited to the celebration of the fourth centenary 
of the discovery of America ; but she has quite as nine]) 
reason, if not as much right, to participate in the demon- 
stration of that occasion as the European nations. En- 
glishman, Hollander, and Huguenot, Nigritian and Congo 
came together. If Europe brought the head, Africa fur- 
nished the hands for a great portion of the work which 
has been achieved here, though it was the opinion of an 
African chief that the man who discovered America ought 
to have been imprisoned for having uncovered one people 
for destruction and opened a field for the oppression and 
suffering of another. 

But when the new continent was opened Africa was 
closed. The veil, which was being drawn aside, was re- 
placed, and darkness once more enveloped the land, for 
then not the country but the people were needed. They 
were to do a work elsewhere, and meanwhile their country 
was to be shut out from the view of the outside World. 

The first Africans landed in this country in the State of 
Virginia in the year 1619. Then began the first phase of 
what is called the Negro problem. These people did not 
come hither of their own accord. Theirs was not a volun- 
tary but a compulsory expatriation. The problem, then, on 
their arrival in this country, which confronted the white 
people was how to reduce to effective and profitable servi- 
tude an alien race which it was neither possible nor de- 
sirable to assimilate. This gave birth to that peculiar in- 
stitution, established in a country whose raison d'etre was 
that all men might enjoy the " right to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness." Laws had to be enacted by Puri- 
tans, Cavaliers, and Roundheads for slaves, and every con- 



11 

trivance had to be devised for the safety of the institution. 
It was a difficult problem, in the effort to solve which both 
master and slave suffered. 

It would seem, however, that in the first years of African 
slavery in this country, the masters upon many of whom 
the relationship was forced, understood its providentia] 
origin and purpose, until after a while, avarice and greed 
darkened their perceptions, and they began to invent 
reasons, drawn even from the Word of God, to justify their 
holding- these people in perpetual bondage for the advan- 
tage of themselves and their children forever. But even 
after a blinding cupidity had captured the generality by 
its bewitching spell, there were those (far-sighted men, es- 
pecially after the yoke of Great Britain had been thrown 
off) who saw that the abnormal relation could not be per- 
manent under the democratic conditions established by 
the fundamental law of the land. It was Thomas Jeffer- 
son, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, who 
made the celebrated utterance : " Nothing is more clearly 
written in the Book of Destiny than the emancipation of 
the blacks ; and it is equally certain that the two races 
will never live in a state of equal freedom under the same 
Government, so insurmountable are the barriers which 
nature, habit, and opinion have established between them." 

For many years, especially in the long and weary period 
of the anti-slavery conflict, the latter part of this dictum 
of Jefferson was denounced by many good and earnest 
men. The most intelligent of the colored people resented 
it as a prejudiced and anti-Christian conception. But as 
the years go by and the Negroes rise in education and 
culture, and therefore in love and pride of race, and in 
proper conception of race gifts, race work and race des- 
tiny, the latter clause of that famous sentence is not only 
being shorn of its obscurity and repulsiveness, but is being 



12 

welcomed as embodying a truth indispensable to the pres- 
ervation and prosperity of both races, and as pointing to 
the regeneration of the African Fatherland. There are 
some others of the race who, recognizing Jefferson's prin- 
ciple, would make the races one by amalgamation. 

It was under the conviction of the truth expressed by 
that statesman that certain gentlemen of all political shades 
and differing religious views, met together in this city 
in the winter of 1816-'17, and organized the American 
Colonization Society. Though friendly to the anti-slavery 
idea, and anxious for the extinction of the abnormal in- 
stitution, these men did not make their views on that sub- 
ject prominent in their published utterances. They were 
not Abolitionists in the political or technical sense of that 
phrase. But their labors furnished an outlet and en- 
couragement for persons desiring to free their slaves, giv- 
ing them the assurance that their freedmen would be re- 
turned to their Fatherland, carrying thither what light 
of Christianity and civilization they had received. It 
seems a pity that this humane, philanthropic, and far- 
seeing work should have met with organized opposition 
from another band of philanthropists, who, anxious for a 
speedy deliverance of the captives, thought they saw in 
the Colonization Society an agency for riveting instead of 
breaking the fetters of the slave, and they denounced it 
with all the earnestness and eloquence they could com- 
mand, and they commanded, both among whites and 
blacks, some of the finest orators the country has ever 
produced. And they did a grand work, both directly and 
indirectly, for the Negro and for Africa. They did their 
work and dissolved their organization. But when their 
work was done the work of the Colonization Society really 
began. 



13 

In the development of the Negro question in this conn- 
try the colonizationists might be called the prophets and 
philosophers ; the abolitionists, the warriors and politi- 
cians. Colonizationists saw what was coining and patiently 
prepared for its advent. Abolitionists attacked the first 
phase of the Negro problem and labored for its immediate 
solution ; colonizationists looked to the last phase of the 
problem and labored to get both the whites and blacks 
ready for it. They labored on two continents, in America 
and in Africa. Had they not begun as early as they did 
to take up lands in Africa for the exiles, had they waited 
for the abolition of slavery, it would now have been impos- 
sible to obtain a foothold in their fatherland for the return- 
ing hosts. The colonizationist, as prophet, looked at the 
State as it would be ; the abolitionist, as politician, looked 
at the State as it was. The politician sees the present 
and is possessed by it. The prophet sees the future and 
gathers inspiration from it. The politician may influence 
legislation ; the prophet, although exercising great moral 
influence, seldom has any legislative power. The agitation 
of the politician may soon culminate in legal enactments ; 
the teachings of the prophet may require generations be- 
fore they find embodiment in action. The politician has 
to-day ; the prophet, to-morrow. The politician deals 
with facts, the prophet with ideas, and ideas take root very 
slowly. Though nearly three generations have passed 
away since Jefferson made his utterance, and more than 
two since the organization of the Colonization Society, yet 
the conceptions they put forward can scarcely be said to 
have gained maturity, much less currency, in the public 
mind. But the recent discussions in the halls of Congress 
show that the teachings of the prophet are now beginning 
to take hold of the politician. It may take many years yet 
before the people come up to these vieAvs, and, therefore, 



14 

before legislation upon them may be possible, but tliere is 
evidently movement in that direction. 

The first phase of the Negro problem was solved at Appo- 
mattox, after the battle of the warrior, with confused noise 
and garments rolled in blood. The institution of • slavery, 
for which so many sacrifices had been made, so many of 
the principles of humanity had been violated, so many of 
the finer sentiments of the heart had been stifled, was at 
last destroyed by violence. 

Now the nation confronts the second phase, the educa- 
tional, and millions are being poured out by State govern- 
ments and by individual philanthropy for the education of 
the freedmen, preparing them for the third and last phase 
of the problem, viz : EMIGRATION. 

In this second phase, we have that organization, which 
might be called the successor of the old Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety, taking most active and effective part. 1 mean the 
American Missionary Association. I have watched with 
constant gratitude and admiration the course and opera- 
tions of that Society, especially when I remember that, or- 
ganized in the dark days of slavery, twenty years before 
emancipation, it held aloft courageously the banner on 
which was inscribed freedom for the Negro and no fel- 
lowship with his oppressors. And they, among tin 1 first, 
went South to lift the freedmen from the mental thraldom 
and moral degradation in which slavery had left him. 
They triumphed largely over the spirit of their opponents. 
They braved the dislike, the contempt, the apprehension 
\\ ith which their work was at first regarded, until they suc- 
ceeded by demonstrating the advantages of knowledge over 
ignorance, to bring about that state of things to which Mr. 
Henry Grady, in his last utterances, was able to refer with 
such satisfaction, viz., that since the war the South has 
spent $122,000,000 in the cause of public education, and 



15 

this year it is pledged to spend 137,000,000, in the benefits 
of which the Negro is a large participant. 

It is not surprising that some of those who, after having 
been engaged in the noble labors of solving the first phase 
of the problem — in the great anti-slavery war — and are 
now confronting the second phase, should be unable to 
receive with patience the suggestion of the third, which is 
the emigration phase, when the Negro, freed in body and 
in mind, shall bid farewell to these scenes of his bondage 
and discipline and betake himself to the land of his fathers, 
the scene of larger opportunities and loftier achievements. 
I say it is not surprising that the veterans of the past and 
the present should be unable to give much enthusiasm to 
the work of the future. It is not often given to man to 
labor successfully in the land of Egypt, in the wilderness 
and across the Jordan. Some of the most effective work- 
ers, must often, with eyes undinimed and natural force 
unabated, lie down and die on the borders of full freedom, 
and if they live, life to them is like a dream. The young 
must take up the work. To old men the indications of the 
future are like a dream. Old men are like them that 
dream. Young men see visions. They catch the spirit of 
the future and are able to place themselves in accord 
with it. 

But things are not yet ready for the solution of the 
third and last phase of the problem. Things are not 
read}- in this country among whites or blacks. The in- 
dustrial condition of the South is not prepared for it. 
Things are not yet ready in Africa for a complete exodus. 
Europe is not yet ready ; she still thinks that she can 
take and utilize Africa for her own purposes. She docs 
not yet understand that Africa is to be for the African or 
for nobody. Therefore she is taking up with renewed 
vigor, and confronting again, with determination, the 



16 

African problem. Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Bel- 
gians, are taking np territory and trying to wring from the 
grey-haired mother of civilization the secret of the ages. 
Nothing has come down from Egypt so grand and im- 
pressive as the Sphinxes that look at you with calm and 
emotionless faces, guarding their secret to-day as they 
formerly guarded the holy temples. They are a symbol of 
Africa. She will not be forced. She only can reveal her 
secret. Her children trained in the house of bondage 
will show it to the world. Some have already returned 
and have constructed an independent nation as a begin- 
ning of this work on her western borders. 

It is a significant fact that Africa was completely shut 
up until the time arrived for the emancipation of her 
children in the Western World. When Jefferson and 
Washington and Hamilton and Patrick Henry were predict- 
ing and urging the freedom of the slave, Mimgo Park was 
beginning that series of explorations by English enterprise 
which has just ended in the expedition of Stanley. Just 
about the time that England proclaimed freedom through- 
out her colonies, the brothers Lander made the great dis- 
covery of the mouth of the Niger ; and when Lincoln issued 
the immortal proclamation, Livingstone was unfolding 
to the world that wonderful region which Stanley has 
more fully revealed and which is becoming now the scene 
of the secular and religious activities of Christendom. 
The King of the Belgians has expended fortunes recently 
in opening the Congo and in introducing the appliances 
of civilization, and by a singular coincidence a bill has 
been brought forward in the IT. S. Senate to assist the 
emigration of Negroes to the Fatherland just at the time 
when that philanthropic monarch has despatched an agent 
to this country to invite the co-operation in his great work 
of qualified freedmen. This is significant. 



17 

What the King of the Belgians lias just done is an in- 
dication of what other European Powers will do when they 
have exhausted themselves in costly experiments to utilize 
white men as colonists in Africa. They will then under- 
stand the purpose of the Almighty in having permitted the 
exile and bondage of the Africans, and they will see that 
for Africa's redemption the Negro is tlie chosen instrument. 
They will encourage the establishment and building up of 
such States as Liberia. They will recognize the scheme 
of the Colonization Society as the providential one. 

The little nation which has grown up on that coast as a 
result of the efforts of this Society, is now taking hold upon 
that continent in a manner which, owing to inexperience, 
it could not do in the past. The Liberians have introduced 
a new article into the commerce of the world — the Liberian 
coffee. They are pushing to the interior, clearing up the 
forests, extending the culture of coffee, sugar, cocoa, and 
other tropical articles, and are training the aborigines in 
the arts of civilization and in the principles of Christianity. 
The Republic occupies five hundred miles of coast with an 
elastic interior. It has a growing commerce with various 
countries of Europe and America. No one who has visited 
that country and has seen the farms on the banks of the 
rivers and in the interior, the workshops, the schools, the 
churches, and other elements and instruments of progress 
will say that the United States, through Liberia, is not 
making a wholesome impression upon Africa, — an impres- 
sion which, if the members of the American Congress un- 
derstood, they would not begrudge tin money required to 
assist a few hundred thousand to carry on in that country 
tin 1 work so well begun. They would gladly spare them 
from the laboring element of this great nation to push for- 
ward the enterprises of civilization in their Fatherland, and 
to build themselves up on the basis of their race manhood. 



18 

If there is an intelligent Negro here to-night I will say to 
him, let me take you with me in imagination to witness 
the new creation or development on that distant shore ; I 
will not paint you an imaginary picture, but will describe 
an historical fact ; I will tell you of reality. Going from the 
coast, through those depressing alluvial plains which fringe 
the eastern and western borders of the continent, you reach, 
after a few miles' travel, the first high or undulating coun- 
try, which, rising abruptly from the swamps, enchants you 
with its solidity, its fertility, its verdure, its refreshing and 
healthful breezes. You go further, and you stand upon a 
higher elevation where the wind sings more freshly in your 
cars, and your heart beats fast as you survey the continu- 
ous and unbroken forests that stretch away from your feet 
to the distant horizon. The melancholy cooing of the 
pigeons in some unseen retreat or the more entrancing 
music of livelier and picturesque songsters alone disturb 
the solemn and almost oppressive solitude. You hear no 
human sound and see the traces of no human presence. 
You decline to pursue your adventurous journey. You 
refuse to penetrate the lonely forest that confronts you. 
You return to the coast, thinking of the long ages which 
have elapsed, the seasons which, in their onward course, 
have come and gone, leaving those solitudes undisturbed. 
You wonder when and how are those vast wildernesses to 
be made the scene of human activity and to contribute to 
human wants and happiness. Finding no answer to your 
perplexing question you drop the subject from your 
thoughts. After a few years a very few it may be — 
you return to those scenes. To. your surprise and grati- 
fication your progress is no longer interrupted by the in- 
convenience of bridle-paths ami tangled vines. The 
roads are open and clear. You miss the troublesome 
creeks and drains which, on your previous journey, 



19 

harassed and fatigued you. Bridges have been con- 
structed, and without any of the former "weariness you find 
yourself again on the summit, where in loneliness you had 
stood sometime before. What do you now see? The 
gigantic trees have; disappeared, bouses have sprung up 
on every side. As far as the eye can see the roofs of com- 
fortable and homelike cottages peep through the wood. 
The waving corn and rice and sugar-cane, the graceful and 
fragrant coffee tree, the umbrageous cocoa, orange, and 
mango plum have taken the place of the former sturdy 
denizens of the forest. What has brought about the 
change ? The Negro emigrant has arrived from America, 
and, slender though his facilities have been, has produced 
these wonderful revolutions. You look beyond and take 
in the forests that now appear on the distant horizon. 
You catch glimpses of native villages embowered in plan- 
tain trees, and you say these also shall be brought under 
civilized influences, and you feel yourself lifted into man- 
hood, the spirit of the teacher and guide and missionary 
comes upon you, and you say, "There, below me and be- 
yond lies the world into which I must go. There must I 
cast my lot. I feel I have a message to it, or a work in 
it ;" and the sense that there are thousands dwelling there, 
some of whom you may touch, some of whom }'ou may in- 
fluence, some of whom may love you or be loved by you, 
thrills you with a strange joy and expectation, and it is a 
thrill which you can never forget ; for ever and anon it comes 
upon you with increased intensity. In that hour you are 
born again. You hear forevermore the call ringing in 
your ears, " Come over and help us." 

These are the visions that rise before the Liberian set- 
tler who has turned away from the coast. This is the view 
that exercises such an influence upon his imagination, and 
gives such tone to his character, making him an inde- 



20 ' 

pendent and productive man on the continent of his fath- 
ers. 

As I have said, this is no imaginary picture, but the em- 
bodiment of sober history. Liberia, then, is a fact, an ag- 
gressive and progressive fact, with a great deal in its past 
and everything in its future that is inspiring and uplifting. 

It occupies one of the most charming countries in the 
western portion of that continent. It has been called by 
qualified judges the garden spot of West Africa. I love 
to dwell upon the memories of scenes which I have passed 
through in the interior of that land. I have read of coun- 
tries which I have not visited — the grandeur of the Rocky 
Mountains and the charms of the Yosemite Valley, and 
my imagination adds to the written description and be- 
comes a gallery of delightful pictures. But of African 
scenes my memory is a treasure-house in which I delight 
to revel. I have distinctly before me the days and dales 
when I came into contact with their inexhaustible beau- 
ties. Leaving the coast line, the seat of malaria, and where 
are often seen the remains of the slaver's barracoons, which 
always give an impression of the deepest melancholy, I 
come to the high table-lamb; with their mountain scenery 
and lovely valleys, their meadow streams and mountain 
rivulets, and there amid the glories of a changeless and 
unchanging nature, I have taken off my shoes and on that 
consecrated ground adored the God and Father of the Af- 
ricans. 

This is the country and this is the work to which the 
American Negro is invited. This is the opening for him 
which, through the labors of the American Colonization 
Society, has Iteen effected. This organization is more than 
a colonization society, more than an emigration society. 
It might with equal propriety and perhaps with greater 
accuracy be called the African Repatriation Society; or 



21 

since the idea of planting towns and introducing extensive 

cultivation of the soil is included in its work, it might be 
called the African Repatriation and Colonization Society, 
for then you bring in a somewhat higher idea than mere 
colonization — the mere settling of a new country by 
strangers — you bring in the idea of restoration, of com- 
pensation to a race and country much and long wronged. 

Colonizationists, notwithstanding all that has been said 
against them, have always recognized the manhood of the 
Negro and been willing to trust him to take care of him- 
self. They have always recognized the inscrutable provi- 
dence by which the African was brought to these shores. 
They have always taught that he was brought hither to 
be trained out of his sense of irresponsibility to a knowl- 
edge of his place as a factor in the great work of human- 
ity ; and that after having been thus trained he could find 
his proper sphere of action only in the land of his origin 
to make a way for himself. They have believed that it 
has not been given to the white man to fix the intellectual 
or spiritual status . of this race. They have recognized 
that the universe is wide enough and God's gifts are varied 
enough to allow the man of Africa to find out a path of 
his own within the circle of genuine human interests, and 
to contribute from the Held of his particular enterprise to 
the resources — material, intellectual, and moral— of the 
great human family. 

But will the Negro go to do this work? 

Is he willing to separate himself from a settled civiliza- 
tion which he has helped to build up to betake himself to the 
wilderness of his ancestral home and begin anew a career 
on his own responsibility? 

I believe that he is. And if suitable provision were 
made for their departure to-morrow hundreds of thousands 
would avail themselves of it. The African question, or the 



22 

Negro problem, is upon the country, and it can no more be 
ignored than any other vital interest. The chief reason, it 
appears to me, why it is not more seriously dealt with is 
because the pressure of commercial and political exigencies 
does not allow time and leisure to the stronger and richer 
elements of the nation to study it. It is not a question of 
color simply — that is a superficial accident. It lies deeper 
than color. It is a question of race, which is the out- 
come not only of climate, but of generations subjected to 
environments which have formed the mental and moral 
constitution. 

It is a question in which two distinct races are con- 
cerned. This is not a question then purely of reason. 
It is a question also of instinct. Races feel ; observers 
theorize. 

The work to be done beyond the seas is not to be a re- 
production of what we see in this country. It requires, 
therefore, distinct race perception and entire race devotion. 
It is not to be the healing up of an old sore, but the un- 
folding of a new bud, an evolution ; the development of 
a new side of God's character and a new phase of humanity. 
God said to Moses, " I am that I am ; " or, more exactly, 
" I shall be that I shall be." Each race sees from its own 
standpoint a different side of the Almighty. The Hebrews 
could not see or serve God in the land of the Egyptians; 
no more can the Negro under the Anglo-Saxon. He can 
serve man here. He can furnish the Labor of the country, 
but to the inspiration of the country he must ever be an 
alien. 

In that wonderful sermon of St. Paul on Mars Hill in 
which he declared that God hath made of one blood all 
nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and 
hath determined the hounds of their habitation, he also 
said, " In Him we live and move and have our being." 



23 

Now it cannot be supposed that in the types and races 
which have already displayed themselves God has ex- 
hausted himself. It is by God in us, where we have 
freedom to act out ourselves, that we do each our several 
work and live out into action, through our work, whatever 
we have within us of noble and wise and true. What we 
do is, if we are able to be true to our nature, the repre- 
sentation of some phase of the Infinite Being. If we live 
and move and have our being in Him, God also lives, and 
moves and has His being in us. This is why slavery of 
any kind is an outrage. It spoils the image of God as it 
strives to express itself through the individual or the race. 
As in the Kingdom of Nature, we see in her great organic 
types of being, in the movement, changes, and order of the 
elements, those vast thoughts of God, so in the great types 
of man, in the various races of the world, as distinct in 
character as in work, in the great divisions of character, 
we see the will and character and consciousness of God 
disclosed to us. According to this truth a distinct phase 
of God's character is set forth to be wrought out into per- 
fection in every separate character. As in every form of 
the inorganic universe we see some noble variation of 
God's thought and beauty, so in each separate man, in 
each separate race, something of the absolute is incarnated. 
The whole of mankind is a vast representation of the 
Deity. Therefore we cannot extinguish any race either by 
conflict or amalgamation without serious responsibility. 

You can easily see then why one race overshadowed by 
another should long to express itself — should yearn for 
the opportunity to let out the divinity that stirs within it. 
This is why the Hebrews cried to God from the depths of 
their affliction in Egypt, and this is why thousands and 
thousands of Negroes in the South are longing to go to 
the land of their fathers. They are not content to remain 



24 

where everything has been done on the line of another 
race. They long for the scenes where everything is to be 
done under the influence of a new racial spirit, under 
the impulse of new skies and the inspiration of a fresh 
development. Only those are fit for this new work who 
believe in the race — have faith in its future — a prophetic 
insight into its destiny from a consciousness of its possi- 
bilities. The inspiration of the race is in the race. 

( hily one race has furnished the prophets for humanity — 
the Hebrew race ; and before they were qualified to do 
this they had to go do'wn to the depths of servile degrada- 
tion. Only to them were revealed those broad and preg- 
nant principles upon which every race can stand and work 
and grow ; but for the special work of each race the proph- 
ets arise among the people themselves. 

What is pathetic about the situation is, that numbers 
among whites and blacks are disposed to ignore the seri- 
ousness and importance of the question. They seem to 
think it a question for political manipulation and to be 
dealt with by partisan statesmanship, not recognizing the 
I act that the whole country is concerned. I freely admit 
the fact, to which attention has been recently called, that 
there are many Afro-Americans who have no more to 
do with Africa than with Iceland, but this does not 
destroy the truth that there are millions whose life is 
bound up with that continent. It is to them that the mes- 
sage comes from their brethren across the deep, "Come 
over and help us." 



3pic WLu&iscomx&tl Country. 



'HE SEVENTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



DELIVERED IX 



The Church of the Epiphany, Washington, D. C, 

JANUARY i8th, 1S91, 

— BY — 

LEIGHTON PARKS, M. A., 
Rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

Press of McGill & Wallace, 1107 E Street N. W. 
l8ql. 



THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. 



I. It is seldom that an organization can count its years as more 
than three score and ten when the whole condition of affairs has 
changed to such an extent as to have apparently made its con- 
tinuance unnecessary. When the Colonization Society was 
founded he would have been imagined a vain dreamer who should 
have prophecied that slavery would cease to exist on this conti- 
nent in less than fifty yeai bad one been found so rash as 
to utter such a prediction, who would not have felt that if it came 
true the need of the existence of the Society would cease with the 
extinction of the evil, the miseries of which it was it- purpose to 
ameliorate ? 

For, parailoxic.il as it may seem, the condition of the slave was 
not as pitiable as that of the freedman in a slave-holding commu- 
nity. F<»r while the slave had some sort of home, an. I well-defined 
relations with his fellow-beings, the freedman belonged to no one. 
No man cared for his soul or body. Hi to support 

himself where labor ua> a drug in the market; free to enjoy a 
liberty which brought responsibility without honor , and separa- 
tion from his brethren, but no adoption into the ruling class. 

It was no wonder that good men hesitated t.> set their slaves 
free when such was the outlook. It need not puzzle us when we 
find that the slaves themselves were so apathetic. Freedom, as 
they saw it. had few attractions. The) preferred to " bear those 
ills they had than flee to others that they knew not 

It was this state of affairs which made the Colonization Society 
a blessing to the country. It provided an asylum for the freed- 
man, and it encouraged the doubtful to take the heroic plunge of 
freeing their slaves. When true freedom came there was no 
apathy. When the blacks understood that life was before them 
to make or mar, exactly as it had been for their masters ; when 
the roving instinct oi the - o long repressed bv the patrol, 

w.is given scope, they rose as gladly as any people and rejoiced 
in the treasure they had found. 



4 ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

It must have seemed to many of its friends then as if the work 
of the Colonization Society had been accomplished and that it 
might adjourn sine die, with the consciousness that it had acted 
the part of the Good Samaritan to the man lying- by the wayside, 
beaten and robbed. But through all the years which have elapsed 
since the war, — so many that when we speak of it our children ask 
if we mean the Revolutionary War — through all these years there 
has been something to be done, a sort of paying the charges at 
the Inn, to return to our figure of the Good Samaritan, and yet 
a secret feeling that when those who had been the friends of the 
Society when it was ridiculed by fire-eater and denounced by 
fanatic had passed away no new men would be found to infuse 
new vigor into the work. 

Suddenly all this has been changed. The right of the Negro, 
the possibility of the Negro, the relation of the Negro to the white 
man, which was for so long the one question in American politics 
— which we had supposed was distinctly a local issue — has sud- 
denly become the greatest of all questions for the civilized world. 
All eyes to-day are turned to Africa. The opening of the Dark 
Continent has been the greatest achievement of the last quarter 
of the century now passing away. It needs no prophet to see 
that it is to be the cause of great searching of heart amid the 
nations of the earth in the new century which is drawing near. 

The ignorance and blindness, the weakness and pathetic pa- 
tience of the Negro race, did not appeal in vain to the Judge of 
all the earth. Here in this city of Washington because of it "the 
mighty were put down from their seat, and they were exalted of 
low degree." This was but the beginning. The part played by 
the Negro in the local history of the United States will be found 
to have been but the rehearsal for the great drama of the twentieth 
century. 

Here, then, is the new opportunity for your Society. Your 
voice, which did not cry aloud nor make itself to be heard in the 
streets, may now speak with authority. Your hand, which fanned 
the smoking flax and bound up the bruised reed, may now be 
held up in protest against the iniquities which some of you will 
see inaugurated before many years have passed. 

II. If I am asked why I anticipate such evils for Africa, I answer, 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. O 

because of the history of the last century and the present condi- 
tion of affairs. 

Professor Seeley, in his " Expansion of England," * says that 
all the wars which have desolated Europe since the end of the 
thirty years' war have been wars for colonies. Spain and Eng- 
land, Holland and France, have grappled with one another in 
Europe for the possession of territory which was unknown to the 
mass of the people, and scarcely more than a name to the rulers. 
Whether the influence of the colonies was as great as he supposes 
may perhaps be a question, but there can be no dotibt that the 
obscure skirmish on the Monongahela, in which the young 
Washington played a part, set the world on fire, says Parkman; 
and when the conflict ceased, leaving "the most triumphant 
peace that England ever knew,"*" it was found that "three of the 
victories of the seven years' war determined for ages the destinies 
of mankind. With that of Rossbach began the recreation of 
Germany; with that of Plassey the influence of Europe told for 
the first time since the days of Alexander on the nations of the 
East ; with the triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham 
began the history of the United States."! 

A chance encounter of French and Indians in the Wilderness 
was the signal for the lifting of the curtain on a stage where such 
figures as Give and Wolf, Frederick the Great and Washington, 
were to play their parts. And amid what scenery ! The hot 
plains of India are trampled to dust beneath the ponderous tread 
of Su raj ah Dowlah's elephants; the swift canoe of the Indian 
darts across the waters of Lake I ieorge or floats down the broad 
waters of the St. Lawrence ; the veterans of the great Frederick 
appear as if by magic in Silicia. The scene is shifted, and from 
the energy of the camp we are shown the luxury of the court. 
Versailles with all its glories appears before us ; a shameless woman 
the real ruler, the destestible king pouring into her lap the treas- 
ures of the kingdom. From behind the scenes is heard from 
time to time a mocking laugh. It is the voice of the old cynic 



* "The Expansion of England," by J. R. Seeley, M. A. London, 1883. 
t .Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. I, p. 150. 

X Greene, History of the English People, IV, 193. Quoted in Park- 
tnan's " Montcalm and Wolfe." Roston, 1884. 



6 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



Voltaire. Well may he laugh ! For all these glories will pass 
away. 

What is it we learn from this recital of the facts familiar to us 
all ? Why this, apparently. That the blow of an Indian's toma- 
hawk shattered the throne of France, humbled the power of 
Austria, pulverized the decaying grandeur of Spain, opened a 
new path for Germany, severed the Eastern and Western pos- 
sessions of France for England to seize, and cut off a continent 
from the Empire of Great Britain. 

He who doubts of the solidarity of the human race should re- 
read the history of the seven years' war. The results of that one 
red man's deed are so prodigious that we doubt if they can be 
the effects of so simple a cause, and, indeed, they were not. The 
murder of Jumonville was but the occasion which caused the 
pent-up forces to burst forth. It may have been but a single 
drop of rain which, permeating the soil at the base of Vesuvius, 
ignited the subterranean acids and caused the great mountain to 
belch forth its molten lava and destroy the cities of Pompeii and 
Herculaneum. The lesson of all history, but above all that of 
the eighteenth century, shows that, given the conditions for a 
conflagration, it needs but a little fire to kindle the great wood. 

The question which we need to ask ourselves is this: Is there 
or is there not reason to anticipate a new conflagration in the near 
future, and is it not probable that Africa will be the occasion, if 
not the cause, thereof? 

III. We need only spread the map of Africa before us to see 
at a glance the position of affairs. England has long held the 
four cardinal points, and now is master of Egypt and the gateway 
of the Nile. Germany claims an empire on the east, and France 
has provinces on all sides except the south. Portugal snarls at 
England on the west coast and Italy growls at France about pos- 
sessions in the north. In the heart of Africa is planted the Congo 
Free State, a power for good as long as the European concert 
continues, but a prize to the strongest when the great scramble 
begins. Will it ever begin ? If Teutonic firmness and French 
finesse and Italian subtlety are taxed to the utmost to extinguish 
the sparks that are continually flying across the borders of civil- 
ized States before they light on the huge magazines that have 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. < 

been built in Europe, what is the probability when these moment- 
ous Issues arc complicated by the presence of savages who are 
ignorant of self-control J 

We point with wonder to the result of the organization which 
will enable a little child to plan- her finger <>n a button which will 
cause the great machinery of an exhibition a thousand miles away 
to revolve: but there is another power more mysterious still, 
which so acts on the hearts ami brains of men that any day a 
furious savage on the banks ol the Am wind may shoot a poisoned 
arrow and cause a revolution in Russia; many homes to be deso- 
late in England; the roll of drums to be heard through France; 
the shrill blare of trumpets to sen am in Italy; the sabres of Aus- 
tria to flash, and the dull thunder of the Kaiser's legions to shake 
the valley of the Rhine, and Europe and Africa to be deluged 
with blood. 

All this is a daily possibility. It was the meeting of the three 
great powers of the world — England France, and Spain — in the 
New World which brought on the seven years' war. Africa is 
the meeting-place to-day, but there are four great powers — Eng- 
land, France, Germany, and Italy— facing one another there, 
and two -Russia and Austria — 1< eping on their arms in Europe. 

The result of that conflict on Europe we will not contemplate. 
I ask you to consider Africa. What must be the result upon her ? 
Imagine two herds ol elephants rushing upon one another a< 
a plain where little children are playing, and ask what would be 
the children's fate! That is the position of the African. Nor is 
that all. Once let the conflict begin and the Arabs will slip in 
like serpents between the i ombatants, and all the horrors of the 
slave trade, checked for a while, will begin again. Thequestion, 
then, which confronts us is this: Have we do responsibility in the 
premises? Have the nations of Ian ope a right to partition Africa . J 
! strange that such a question is lost sight of. 

It will be answered, the Afrii ans have no right to the exclusive 
possession of the land anymore than the North American In- 
dians had to use this continent as a game preserve. No doubt 
that is true. The surplus population of Europe has a right to 
flow into the unused lands of Africa. But on what condition? 
< )nly on the condition thai they will use it better than thesavages 
who are their neighbors. They must e;o with the tools accumu- 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

lated by centuries of civilization. They may not abandon in- 
dustry. They must carry with them the morals of civilization. 
They may not break faith with the nations about them and then 
denounce as devils those who slay them while they sleep or entrap 
them in the forest. Every man has a right to life, liberty and the 
enjoyment of his property, even the savage by whom the civilized 
man settles. But how seldom is that remembered ! Think of 
the wholesale robbery of India by England till the Mutiny taught 
her that justice paid ! Remember that less than thirty vears ago 
the Legislature of Idaho ottered Sioo for every Indian warrior's 
scalp and a proportionate sum for the scalps of women and of 
children under ten years old ! Remember — no, it is present in 
your minds — the ghastly story of the battle of Wounded Knee. 
When men ask us if we would stop the onward march of civiliza- 
tion by the opposition of sentiment, we answer. Xo; but what we 
do demand is that it shall be civilization which advances, and not 
a savagery more deadly than that which it seeks to replace because 
armed with the powers of civilization. We ask that States which 
plant colonies should see that the laws which protect the weak in 
Europe should be enforced in favor of Tonquins, Burmese, Afri- 
cans, and Indians. 

Yet see how coolly such a fair minded man as Stanley can con- 
template injustice. " We were in camp by noon of the 29th at 
Congo la Lemba, on the site of a place I knew some years ago 
as a flourishing village. The chief of it was then in his glory — 
an undisputed master of the district. Prosperity, however, 
spoiled him, and he began to exact tolls from the State caravans. 
The route being blocked by his insolence, the State sent a force 
ot Bangalos, who captured and beheaded him. The village was 
burned, and the people fled elsewhere. The village site is now 
covered with tall grass, and its guava, palm, and lemon trees are 
choked with reeds. 

What had this man done ? He had enacted a tariff bill ; or, 
to put it more accurately, he did exactly what Canada hus done 
in regard to goods passing through the Welland Canal. Suppose 
Montreal were burned in reprisal, should we not have to answer 
for it ? But this poor uninstructed political economist had no 

* In Darkest Africa, vol. I. p. 82. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS 9 

friends, and " tall grass covers the site of his village." " If these 
things are done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry ?" 

I have spoken only of what we might call the common law of 
morals, which is all the State can deal with ; but when we consider 
tin- settlers ;is individuals they must be judged by a higher law — 
the law of Christ. By that law they will be asked not if they 
treated the savages as if they were human, but whether they 
looked on them as brothers and tried to live with them as such. 
I know the difficulties which will be urged. It will be said: "The 
conflict between the new and the old, progress and retrogression, 
civilization and savagery, is as inevitable as the conflict between 
light and darkness. No compromise is possible. The historian 
of the Old Testament recognized this truth, and said that the 
Israelites were commanded by Jehovah to exterminate the 
Canaanites." Hut such an argument is a moral anachronism. 
The only possibility for the life of virtue was the extinction of 
vice, and the only way to extinguish it was by the extirpation of 
the vicious. Conquest was the watchward of Israel, but conver- 
sion is the countersign of Christ's disciples. Faith in conversion, 
the change from bad to good of any creature on this earth, is the 
fruit of Jesus' work, and it rests on the knowledge that every son 
of man is potentially a son of God. That is the faith which has 
overcome the world. 

Every civilized nation which plants a colony in Africa owes the 
natives the best fruit of its civilization, and every Christian who 
lands there owes them the revelation which has changed his life. 
Our civilization has made us the masters of nature; our science 
has shown us the pit from which we were digged; our religion 
has shown us the goal of human progress, the likeness of Jesus 
Christ The Son of Man is the brother of every human being. 
Every human being has latent possibilities greater than any ex- 
cept Jesus has dreamed of. 

Of course, this is doubted. The phrenologist comes with a 
skull to show the limitation of Africa's future. The a-sthete 
declares that there has been nothing of beauty made in Africa. 
The bigot declares that the Negro is under the curse of Canaan. 
But the cure of pessimism is a knowledge of history. The feeble 
spark upon which depended human habitation, art and music, 
literature, science, and religion, never came to its perfection 



L ADDK7— 

while isolated from kindred sparks. The glory of Hebr: 

hi.i : : - ■ .: er^ [r.vr.:f.: r. r^ " ;."_: 7.-7:;7;r. 7-rriA:: 

- C ::■ : 7:7.- liter the ::i:i ::" irtrr.til :::; -:. . .- :r. 

brought in the host Roman law made Spain and 

Gaul and die forests Germany a nt dwelling place ibr men. 

5 -- .: — ::;■:::: . ...: z ir.i .""r:::: ".-7. v-re the thi.irer. 
- .-.:- -: s.i ':..-. :t7ss;r :.z.z 1> : r:::i:t : :~ :;;:•: 

TV -- ::::-:: iee r : .:::.:: ~h::h ::::- stretthei ... . - ^ 
coast would never have expanded into a mighty nation but for 
the incoming of every nation under heaven. This history might 
all be traced back again. American liberty in France. French 
z . - : -: : = 1- Zu: 77 _..-.:;--- . r z --:~.\r. 7r:::::.: 

r - r .r. ]: - Vrtex : . .:_ . -. . 7 -. : - -. ~ - :-: :-.z z -r.i ::r :.: i 

: : .~ i --: - : it :i : ..::.: :r. lis ?~ ez: -.izz :/.- - ::t: :ir _- 
ence of die heavens, and made the world what it is. But all this 
- 

tithe * - - Is it s: _ : " - -. his 

- — the httle s'ltti :: Zi^liii '- ■'■-'- zeer. - : httei in . h-:e 

manner, what would be its condition to-day? Let me quote 
from a recent speech of the veneraz I McCosh : 

7 z" z .-.--..: the r : : - :tr:Irit ."iter. .7.7 the 7 _-_:e- : 
-_- —lis -.:•:; ::-.:_ - r. _-- hi:: - i ' ere :. : the : v :th 

- -tins .1 . m d n ted 

7h - -. 
were supposed to be pleasing to the gods. A communit 
women, including mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, was 
the rule of the family. They offered prisoners of war as sacri- 
fices well pleasing to the gods, and in times of danger their best 
tret, viz rrhttei t: it -.: h t: z - their ieties Might not 

this, with sligbt change, be written of the tribes of Africa ? V 
that is a description of our British forefathers before the preach - 
in; ::' the I- :-zz 

IV. The touch of life by life has been the cause of the advance 
of civilization and Christianity in Europe. Asia and America ; 

rtiact of speech of Dr. McCosh at the Lake Mohonk Conference, 

- 



ANNUAL ADDRESS 11 

and however great may have been the influence of individuals 
like Augustine, St. Colombo or St. Francis Xavier, or Eliot or 
Judson or Livingstone, the real force must be the colony, for only 
in the colony can the brotherly life preached by the heralds be 
realized. 

That is the work which opens before your Society to-day. If 
Liberia is to be preached as a refuge for the blacks oppressed and 
denied their rights in the land which their labor has enriched, 
then, in my judgment, it will meet with but small support; for 
the American people intend that they shall be given every oppor- 
tunity open to the ignorant and afflicted of every land to quit 
themselves like men. And that healthy public opinion which 
will not simply pass resolutions, but will teach school and preach 
the Gospel and act as the friend of the Negro, will make the con- 
ditions of his life more and more favorable for the development 
of his manhood in citizenship and Christian fellowship. But if 
any of them are hearing the voice which bids them, "Go, see 
whether it be well with thy brethren" and your report shows 
that many thousands have applied for passage in the la- 
then I say every encouragement should be given them to under- 
take a work which may have more momentous issues than we can 
anticipate. 

It was the nucleus of the English in the thirteen colonies which 
held the seed of constitutional liberty until the season was suffi- 
ciently advanced to bring it to maturity. Why mav not Liberia 
play the same part in the great drama of which Africa is to be .the 
stage ? It is the one colony founded in love and faith. Its only 
fault has been its weakness. If a steady stream of choice emi- 
grants could flow from this country to Liberia for twenty vears, 
then its financial difficulties would be relieved, its internal im- 
provements pushed to completion, and its commerce extended. 
Then think what it is we should see? A native Protestant 
democracy in Africa ! Such a state would be indeed an asvlum 
for the oppressed when the great conflict breaks like a tornado 
over the land. Such a state would be the great radiating sun for 
the diffusion of light. It would have an advantage which no 
European colony, such as the Congo Free State, can have, for 
the presence of white men serves to emphasize the difference 
between white and black men. whereas the sight of civilized and 



12 AX MA I. A.DDRESS. 

Christianized Negroes is a monument of the possibilities of the 
African race. That that race is to be exterminated by the armies 
of Europe cannot be believed. It has a future, and that future 
may be largely influenced by the Republic of Liberia, and the 
great blessings which her citizens have received, even in the house 
of bondage, be given the people of Africa. 

Of course before such a stupendous work can be contemplated 
with any definite expectation of success, Liberia must be a much 
greater power than she is to day. She needs men, not a mere 
increase in numbers, but an increase in men of character — men 
who believe that religion is not a crying of "Lord, Lord," but 
the daily doing of "the will of the Father in heaven." Such 
men cannot easily be found among those who have behind them 
centuries of Christian culture. It need not surprise us that the 
calm and serious character, whose corner-stone is self-control, is 
not the characteristic of those whose ancestors three generations 
back were "children of wrath" — the instruments of every un- 
bridled lust in Africa, and whose only training was the tyranny of 
slavery, having for its motive obedience, but from which the 
liberty of service was necessarily unknown. Still each year in- 
creases the number of those who have never felt the blight of slav- 
ery ; and, while it is true it increases the number of those who have 
known the corruption of license, it still remains a fact that the 
world has never seen a race with such a past, showing such 
good fruit now and better hope for the future. Every year it 
will be easier to find those who having heard with great exulta- 
tion Christ's command, " Call no man your master on the earth," 
are listening to his further words, " For one is your Master, even 
Christ." One such family in Liberia may be to Africa what 
Priscilla and Aquila were to Europe, for whom not only Paul 
"gave thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles." To help 
such on their way is the special work of your Society. 

But it cannot end there ; Liberia, as well as America, needs 
common schools — the great nursery of citizenship. For the tra- 
ditions which have been brought from here will soon perish if 
an atmosphere capable of receiving and imparting the ideas which 
are the meat and drink of thoughtful men is not created. This 
must be the work of schools for boys and girls, and then will come 
a demand for larger learning, and there, as elsewhere, they that 
ask will receive 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



13 



Above all there is need of the support of the religion of Jesus 
Christ. How glad we would be to learn that the Liberians had 
cast away the old party names which speak more of war than of 
peace, and were engaged in laying the foundation of the church 
of Africa, modeled not on any American sect, but taking such 
outward form as its peculiar needs suggest, and filled with the 
spirit of Christ; training native Evangelist ignorant of Trent, 
and Westminster, and Dort and Andover, and Lambeth, but 
knowing much of Wilberforce and Judson, and Corey, and 
Marsham, and Johnson, and Paterson, and Livingstone — Ah, 
we are asking more of Liberia than we dare do. Let us hope, 
however, better things for ourselves and them. What might 
they not do? What glories might they not reach ? Who dare 
limit the work in Africa ? 

V. I have called this address The Undiscovered Country. 
What is it? Almost all of Africa, of the world, is known ; only 
the ice-floes of the north and south remain unexplored; only the 
details of the picture of the earth remain to be filled in. It is 
tame work compared with the deeds of the heroic spirits who, 
from Columbus to Stanley, have pushed into the great mystery, 
and returned with the treasures of the earth. What remains? 
Is it not sad to think that the spirit of adventure has exhausted 
itself; that no new worlds to conquer appear? It would be sad 
if it were true, but it is not true. The earth beneath our feet is 
Undiscovered Country. The stars which smile each night upon 
our ignorance are Undiscovered Country. But greater, more 
mysterious, more absorbing than all, is the nature of man ; its 
history, its power, its future. That is the great Undiscovered 
Country which man will yet explore. 

We know the general outlines of it in the East. Its charac- 
teristics are dignity and patience, but it is ever tending to degen- 
erate to sloth. The North has shown great tenacity of purpose 
and nobility of aim, but marred by self-satisfaction and coldness 
of heart. The West is full of energy and ingenuity, but not 
unmixed with coarseness and selfishness. 

Where is a people whose characteristic is a capacity for the 
reception of the Divine Love, as the East has received the im- 
mensity of God and the West His power? May it not be found 



1 I ANNUAL ADDRESS. 

among the children of the South ? Do you say the suggestion 
is arbitrary? I answer no, I remind you that the two charac- 
teristics of the Negroes in the awful days of the civil war were 
fidelity and affection ; and if it be true that "Zeus takes away 
half a man's virtue in the day that slavery comes upon him," 
what may we expect when they enter upon the "liberty of the 
children of God." 

But, indeed, our faith is not ' empirical, it is scientific. The 
scientist knows that a field or mountain or plain seen for the first 
time is essentially natural. It is a part of the great Nature in 
which he believes, and subject to the same laws which influenced 
the farm when he was a boy and the garden in which he played. 
But the great interest of his life is the discovery of the infinite 
manifestations of the glory of nature. 

So we look on man wherever found. We see that the African 
is human; we know, therefore, that he is subject to the same in- 
fluences which have moulded men the world over. We believe 
that he has hid treasures which it will be his joy to become con- 
scious of, and the world's glory- to see. 

The darker the room, the greater the mystery ; the deeper 
the mystery, the keener the interest ; the fuller the interest, the 
larger the expectation; the larger man's expectation of God's 
glory, the more intense will be the thrill of joy when God again 
reveals himself in man. When the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ shines in darkest Africa some feature of the Divine 
Image will be brought to light which the world has not yet seen. 

The Civilization and Conversion of Africa— that is the work 
which presents itself before this Society. The colonization of 
Liberia with Negroes, who, feeling that their race has now been 
called, in the purpose of God, to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, 
rejoice in the opportunity to be not mere preachers of the Good 
News, but examples of Christian civilization the like of which has 
not been seen since the Mayflower brought religious liberty to 
this continent — perhaps since Augustine led his monks to Can- 
terbury. 

May it be the office of your centennial preacher to tell of great 
deeds done and ripe fruit gathered in the harvest that will surely 
come. 



ncrr* o o<mjisi 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. L5 

I have thought that it was my privilege to tell you of the dream 
of the Old Century, and if it seems to any of you that this dream 
of the Undiscovered Country of God's glory in man rests upon no 
reality, I would remind you that it is but the special form of a 
dream which has filled the world with a new hope. 

" Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 
Say to them that are of a fearful heart : Be strong, fear not ; 
behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense 
of God ; he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind 
shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the 
dumb shall sing ; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, 
and streams in the desert. And the glowing sand shall become 
a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. And an highway 
shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holi- 
ness ; the unclean shall not pass over it ; but it shall be for the 
way-faring man ; yea, fools shall not err therein. No lion shall 
be there, nor any ravenous beast go up thereon ; they shall not be 
found there ; but the redeemed shall walk there ; and the ran- 
somed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion; 
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ; they shall obtain 
gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."* 

Friends of Liberia, when that great work begins in Africa, the 
slaves of America will speak to us as did Joseph to his conscience- 
stricken brethren: "I am your brother whom ye sold. Now 
then be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me, 
for God did send me to preserve life, "f One more act of earth's 
tragedy will have been played, and again it will be seen that out 
of evil God brings good. 



* Isaiah, 35: 3-10. 
f Genesis, 45: 5. 



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